Деро Manual for Developing Local Area Unemployment Statistics Preface The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is charged with the responsibility for the concepts and methods by which State employment security agencies prepare estimates under the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. BLS has prepared this manual primarily for use by State agencies in the Federal-State cooperative program to provide consistent instructions and documentation for the development of the estimates. It explains the conceptual framework for the State and area estimates of employment and unemployment, specifies the exact procedures to be used, and discusses the theoretical and empirical basis for each procedure. The manual is the most recent in a series of documents on the development of State and area unemployment statistics and formally replaces all existing instructions. The first document, Techniques for Estimating Unemployment, was issued in 1950 by the Bureau of Employment Security (now the Employment and Training Administration) of the Department of Labor. Revised methods were published by BES in March 1960 in Handbook on Estimating Unemployment. Further refinements of the estimating methods by ETA were transmitted as amendments to the Handbook in numbered Reports and Analysis Letters (RAL's). After 1972, when the Department of Labor transferred program responsibility to the BLS, methodological changes initiated by BLS were transmitted in numbered memoranda as addenda to the 1960 Handbook and RAL's. This manual is a compendium of all existing procedures on estimating State and area unemployment. The manual contains a brief introduction and three chapters, each relating to a major phase in the development of LAUS estimates. Chapter 1 and appendix A cover the use of Current Population Survey data. Chapter 2 and appendix B are concerned with the building block approach known as the Handbook method in terms of the basic data and the employment and unemployment components. Chapter 3 contains instructions on the disaggregation of labor market area estimates to the county and subcounty level. Appendix D provides instructions on the submission of requests for atypical or exception treatment. A glossary of terms is also provided. The manual was prepared in the Division of Local Area Unemployment |