Local Area Unemployment Statistics Program

U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics

2 Massachusetts Ave., N.E.

Washington, D.C. 20212

Date : November 30, 2020

LAUS Technical Memorandum No. S-21-02

MEMORANDUM FOR: STATE WORKFORCE AGENCY ADMINISTRATORS

AND REGIONAL COMMISSIONERS

FROM : JAY A. MOUSA

Associate Commissioner

Office of Field Operations

SUBJECT : Schedules for Monthly and Annual Processing in 2021

Purpose: This memorandum provides the monthly processing schedule for 2021 and the schedule for the 2020 annual processing cycle.

Reference: LAUS Technical Memorandum No. S-20-01-rev, Schedules for Monthly and Annual Processing in 2020, dated December 4, 2019, and revised December 30, 2019.

Alternative measures of labor underutilization: The national office will continue its practice of issuing four-quarter moving averages of the alternative measures of labor underutilization, also known as U-1 through U-6, at the state level each quarter. Issuance of those data will occur on the Friday after the state news release is issued for the last month of each quarter. The specific dates are as follows:

Period Release Date

2Q 2020 – 1Q 2021 April 23, 2021

3Q 2020 – 2Q 2021 July 23, 2021

4Q 2020 – 3Q 2021 October 29, 2021

1Q 2021 – 4Q 2021 January 28, 2022

State publication of LAUS data: To assist the national office, states are requested to provide their 2021 publication schedule through the regional offices. That schedule should indicate, for each month, the dates on which LAUS estimates are to be released for (1) the state, (2) metropolitan areas, and (3) small areas. In addition to the dates, states are asked to provide data release times, if available. States should transmit their publication calendar through the regional offices by January 8, 2021, if possible. The national office will provide an Excel template through the regional offices for states to enter release dates and times. In developing their 2021 release calendars, states should keep in mind (1) the requirement that data should not be released before the BLS due date and (2) the annual processing schedule, as well as the attached production and release schedule. If states change any of the dates in their release calendar, they should forward the new dates to regional offices as soon as they become available.

Scope of Annual Processing: Input revisions in LAUSToo during the 2020 annual processing (AP) cycle in early 2021 will be required for the 2019 and 2020 reference years only. Revisions to inputs for 2010-18 are optional. States that plan to revise inputs in LAUSToo prior to 2019 should inform their regional office of the years and inputs affected by February 5, 2021, if possible. BLS will run automated calculations for AP years in chronological order, so input entry, editing, and finalization should be completed in LAUSToo for the earlier years first. In 2017 and earlier years, BLS budgeted three workdays for running automation. Due to the increasing number of reference years in scope, this was increased to four workdays in 2018 and will remain at four workdays in 2021. As a result, states will not be able to run calculations on Monday during the January 2021 processing week in LAUSToo.

For STARS AP, the entire CES historical benchmarked series will be updated for states (back to 1976) and modeled areas (back to 1990). Claims data are typically revised for the most recent 1-12 months; however, any revisions to claims data prior to that should be entered as well.

Actions required: States should complete monthly and annual processing based on the dates included in the attachments to this memorandum. States should transmit their publication calendars through the regional offices by January 8, 2021, if possible. States that plan to revise inputs in LAUSToo prior to reference year 2019 should inform their regional office by February 5, 2021.

Workload impact: Neutral.

Inquiries: All inquiries should be directed to the appropriate regional office.

Effective date: These instructions are effective immediately.

Attachments:

1. 2021 LAUS Monthly Processing Due Dates and Publication Dates

2. 2021 LAUS Monthly Processing Availability of Inputs

3. 2021 LAUS Monthly Processing Dates for State-to-State Exchange of Items

4. 2021 LAUS Monthly Processing UI Claims Reference Periods

5. 2020 LAUS Annual Processing Due Dates and Publication Dates and Planned LAUSToo Automation Run Dates

6. Selected LAUS 2020 Annual Processing Dates

Attachment 1

2021 LAUS Monthly Processing Due Dates and Publication Dates

(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)		(5)	(6)
Reference Month	Employment Situation News Release (Friday)	Due Date for LAUS Estimates ——————————————— Statewide1 All Areas (Friday) (Friday)			State News Release (Friday)	Metro Area News Release and All-Area Data Issuance (Wednesday)
January	2/5	2/26		3/5	3/15 (Mon.)	3/19 (Fri.)
February	3/5	3/12		3/26	3/26	4/7
March	4/2	4/9		4/16	4/16	4/28
April	5/7	5/14		5/21	5/21	6/2
May	6/4	6/11		6/18	6/23 (Wed.)	6/30
June	7/2	7/9		7/16	7/16	7/28
July	8/6	8/13		8/20	8/20	9/1
August	9/3	9/10		9/17	9/17	9/29
September	10/8	10/15		10/22	10/22	11/3
October	11/5	11/12		11/19	11/19	12/2 (Thurs.)
November	12/3	12/10		12/17	12/17	12/30 (Thurs.)
December	1/7/22	1/14/22		1/21/22	1/25/22 (Tues.)	2/2/22

¹ Includes inputs for seven additional modeled substate areas and their respective Balances of state.

NOTES: Release dates do not follow the usual monthly schedule early in the year due to longer processing time required for annual benchmarking and the need to spread out LAUS releases. In other months, the dates may vary from the norm due to federal holidays or conflicts with other BLS releases. All nonstandard days of the week are noted.

Attachment 2

2021 LAUS Monthly Processing Availability of Inputs

(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
Reference Month	Employment Situation News Release (Friday)	Statewide All-Other and Agricultural Employment and Unemployed Entrant Estimates Available (Wednesday)	RRB Claims Data Available (Friday)	Quarterly Exhaustee Survival Rates Available (Thursday)
January	2/5	2/24	2/26	2/25
February	3/5	3/10	3/12
March	4/2	4/7	4/9
April	5/7	5/12	5/14	4/8
May	6/4	6/9	6/11
June	7/2	7/7	7/9
July	8/6	8/11	8/13	7/8
August	9/3	9/8	9/10
September	10/8	10/13	10/15
October	11/5	11/10	11/12	10/14
November	12/3	12/8	12/10
December	1/7/22	1/12/22	1/14/22

NOTE: All BLS inputs will be loaded directly into LAUSToo by BLS.

Attachment 3

2021 LAUS Monthly Processing Dates for State-to-State Exchange of Items

(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
Reference Month	Substate Area Estimates Due Date (Friday)	Commuter Claims (Wednesday)	Nonfarm Wage and Salary Employment (Monday)	Interstate Area LAUS Estimates (Wednesday)
January	3/5	2/24	3/1	3/3
February	3/26	3/10	3/22	3/24
March	4/16	4/7	4/12	4/14
April	5/21	5/12	5/17	5/19
May	6/18	6/9	6/14	6/16
June	7/16	7/7	7/12	7/14
July	8/20	8/11	8/16	8/18
August	9/17	9/8	9/13	9/15
September	10/22	10/13	10/18	10/20
October	11/19	11/10	11/15	11/17
November	12/17	12/8	12/13	12/15
December	1/21/22	1/12/22	1/18/22 (Tues.)	1/19/22

Attachment 4

2021 LAUS Monthly Processing UI Claims Reference Periods

(1)	(2)	(3)
Reference Month	Continued Claims Reference Week (Ending Date)	Final Payments Reference Period (Week Ending Dates)
January	1/16	12/12/2020 - 1/9/2021 (5 weeks)
February	2/13	1/16 - 2/6 (4 weeks)
March	3/13	2/13 - 3/6 (4 weeks)
April	4/17	3/13 - 4/10 (5 weeks)
May	5/15	4/17 - 5/8 (4 weeks)
June	6/12	5/15 - 6/5 (4 weeks)
July	7/17	6/12 - 7/10 (5 weeks)
August	8/14	7/17 - 8/7 (4 weeks)
September	9/18	8/14 - 9/11 (5 weeks)
October	10/16	9/18 - 10/9 (4 weeks)
November	11/13	10/16 - 11/6 (4 weeks)
December	12/11	11/13 - 12/4 (4 weeks)

Attachment 5

2020 LAUS Annual Processing Due Dates and Publication Dates

(1)	(2)	(3)
Task	STARS (Statewide1)	LAUSToo (All Areas)
Input Entry
Start	1/26	2/8
Due	2/12	2/23
Estimates Review
Start	N/A	3/2
Due	N/A	2020: 3/5 2010-19: 3/26
BLS Publication	3/3	4/16

¹ Includes seven additional modeled substate areas and their respective Balances of state.

Planned LAUSToo Automation Run Dates

(1)	(2)
Round	Dates
1	2/24 – 3/1
1b (2020 only)	3/4
2	3/9 – 3/12
3	3/23 – 3/26
4 (if needed)	4/6 – 4/9

Though several rounds are scheduled, inputs should be as accurate as possible prior to round 1 to minimize estimate changes late in the process.

Attachment 6

Selected LAUS 2020 Annual Processing Dates

January 26 – April 16, 2021

January 26	STARS Annual Processing (AP) module opens for entry of inputs
February 5	Residency Assignment Software (RAS) unavailable after 4:45 PM ET for annual Census geography updates
February 8	RAS geography updates complete
	LAUSToo opens for entry of 2010-20 AP and January 2021 inputs
February 12	STARS AP inputs due
February 23	STARS AP completed
	STARS made available for January 2021 estimation
	Revised monthly model-based controls loaded into LAUSToo
	LAUSToo AP input finalization due for all years, 2010-20
February 26	January 2021 model inputs due
March 1	AP 2010-20 substate area estimates provided for review
March 3	2020 Regional and State Unemployment, Annual Averages news release issued
	Labstat updated with revised data for model-based areas
March 5	AP 2020 substate area estimates finalization due
	January 2021 substate area estimates due
March 15	January 2021 State Employment and Unemployment news release issued
March 19	January 2021 Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment news release issued
March 26	AP 2010-19 substate area estimates finalization due
	BLS target deadline for provision of feedback on finalized substate area inputs
April 16	AP substate data for 2010-20 published in Labstat