LibGuides: MKT-343: Market Research Design: Labor Market Conditions

Labor Market

Finding Wage Information

Researching wages is an important part of examining the labor relations of a particular firm. Say that you need to resources that have wage rate information searchable by these three criteria: (1) NAICS code, (2) Local, regional, and national area, and (3) Skill level (entry level and highest paid level). Here are suggestions on how to do this:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides some of the information you need. Entitled: Wages by Area and Occupation:
- By NAICS http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrci.htm#11
- Area Wages: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm
- Select the downloadable Excel Files which includes 10th, 25th, 75th, 90th percentile wages, plus median and mean.
  Use the 10th percentile as the starting wage and then the 75th and 90th as "skilled level" categories. Available for National, State, and Local.
The National Compensation Survey (NCS) is another survey. The NCS is a little more current than the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It has fewer occupations, but does include skill levels for some of the occupations. The NCS is based on "personal interviews and visits," supposedly making the survey data a little more accurate. It provides comprehensive measures of occupational earnings; compensation cost trends, benefit incidence, and detailed plan provisions. Detailed occupational earnings are available for metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, broad geographic regions, and on a national basis. The index component of the NCS (ECI) measures changes in labor costs. Average hourly employer cost for employee compensation is presented in the ECEC.
On this page: http://lehd.did.census.gov/led/index.html, click on the link for QWI Online. The QWI is the Quarterly Workforce Indicators database. It only has state and metro level data, and only for participating states. Alabama is a participating state. You can search by metro area and also get state level data. You can also search by 2-digit NAICS code for industries. The wage data, unfortunately, is only average monthly earnings and average new hire earnings.
Also try O'Net; (Occupational Information Network). This site has most SIC codes.
Salary.com will cover geographic area, and skill level.

Labor Statistics

Bureau of Labor Statistics - U.S. Department of Labor
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Current and historical labor statistics, including employment, unemployment, consumer price index, average hourly wages, wages by area and occupation, employee benefits, labor costs, and employee injuries.
Consumer Population Survey
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Monthly survey of about 50,000 households provides estimates for U.S. labor data, including employment, unemployment, earnings, and hours of work. Data are available by occupation, industry, and class of workers, as well as by demographic characteristics including age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, and education. The CPS also provides a detailed annual income survey.
Labour Statistics - International Labour Organization (ILO)
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International labour statistics covering economically active population (data since 1945) employment, unemployment, hours of work, wages, labour cost, consumer prices, occupational injuries, occupational accidents, and strikes and lockouts (data since 1969).
U.S. Census Bureau - Population and Household Economic Topics
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Census data include labor force statistics, occupation, journey to work, home-based workers, disability, and income, as well as detailed demographic information on age, ancestry, race, Hispanic origin, immigration, education, poverty, and other population and household data.
World Bank Data
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World Bank data from from more than 200 countries. Go to Data by Topic - Labor and Employment for data on employment, labor force, women's labor force participation, unemployment, and wages.