[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 245 (Wednesday, December 22, 2004)]
[Notices]
[Pages 76793-76794]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E4-3731]


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DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Bureau of Labor Statistics


Proposed Collection, Comment Request

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Labor, as part of its continuing effort to 
reduce paperwork and respondent burden, conducts a pre-clearance 
consultation program to provide the general public and Federal agencies 
with an opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing 
collections of information in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995 (PRA95) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)). This program helps to 
ensure that requested data can be provided in the desired format, 
reporting burden (time and financial resources) is minimized, 
collection instruments are clearly understood, and the impact of 
collection requirements on respondents can be properly assessed. The 
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is soliciting comments concerning the 
proposed revision of the ``Report on Employment, Payroll, and Hours 
(BLS-790).'' A copy of the proposed information collection request 
(ICR) can be obtained by contacting the individual listed below in the 
Addresses section of this notice.

DATES: Written comments must be submitted to the office listed in the 
Addresses section of this notice on or before February 22, 2005.

ADDRESSES: Send comments to Amy A. Hobby, BLS Clearance Officer, 
Division of Management Systems, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Room 4080, 
2 Massachusetts Avenue NE., Washington, DC 20212, telephone number 202-
691-7628. (This is not a toll free number.)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Amy A. Hobby, BLS Clearance Officer, 
telephone number 202-691-7628. (See Addresses section.)

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    The Current Employment Statistics (CES) Survey is a Federal/State 
program of the BLS. It produces monthly estimates of total employment, 
woman worker employment, production or nonsupervisory worker 
employment, and hours, and earnings for production or nonsupervisory 
workers based on a sample of U.S. nonagricultural establishments. 
Information for these estimates is derived from a sample of 
approximately 283,000 reports, as of September 2004. Each month, these 
firms report their employment, payroll, and hours on forms identified 
as the BLS-790. All of these reports are collected under a probability 
based sample design.
    A list of all form types currently used is included below in the 
Current Action section of this notice. Respondents receive variations 
of the basic collection forms, depending on their industry. The BLS is 
requesting approval through February 29, 2008.
    The CES program is a voluntary program under Federal statute. 
Reporting to the State agencies is voluntary in all but five States 
(California, Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, South Carolina) and 
Puerto Rico, and, to our knowledge, the States that do have mandatory 
reporting rarely exercise their authority. The collection form's 
confidentiality statement cites the Confidential Information Protection 
and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 and mentions the State mandatory 
reporting authority.
    Automated data collection methods are now used for most of the CES 
sample. Approximately 86,000 reports are received through Electronic 
Data Interchange and 76,000 reports are collected using Touchtone Data 
Entry, as of September 2004. Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing 
is the third largest mode, accounting for 54,000 reports. In 
comparison, only 8,400 reports are collected by mail. Fax also is a 
significant collection mode, as 36,000 reports are collected via this 
method. The balance of the sample is collected through other automated 
methods including web and submission of tapes and diskettes.
    Research on use of the World Wide Web for data collection is 
continuing. The BLS is continuing to evaluate Web based data collection 
and investigating approaches for optimizing response rates. The BLS 
also is testing the feasibility of fax with optical character 
recognition (OCR) collection for the CES. OCR technology has improved 
to the point where respondents can fax their data to the BLS and the 
incoming fax can be automatically processed into a data set.

II. Desired Focus of Comments

    The BLS is particularly interested in comments that:
     Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is 
necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, 
including whether the information will have practical utility;
     Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the 
burden of the proposed collection of information, including the 
validity of the methodology and assumptions used;
     Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the 
information to be collected; and
     Minimize the burden of the collection of information on 
those who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate 
automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection 
techniques or other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting 
electronic submissions of responses.

III. Topic for Special Consideration

    The BLS is introducing the collection of several new data items and 
eliminating one item. The new items are All Employee Payroll, All 
Employee Commissions, All Employee Hours, and Gross Monthly Earnings. 
The BLS is eliminating collection of the Women

[[Page 76794]]

Worker data element as a separate date item. Gender specific data will 
no longer be available from the Current Employment Statistics program. 
However, data on the total number of employees will continue to be 
collected.
    The present CES hours and earnings series, which apply only to 
production and non-supervisory workers, are seriously limited in scope. 
This limits their value as overall economic indicators. Expanding the 
concept of hours and earnings to cover all employees, and adding a 
series on gross monthly earnings will be especially beneficial to the 
Bureau of Economic Analysis for derivation of personal income 
estimates, and also for the BLS productivity estimates. Both personal 
income and productivity estimates use the current production/non-
supervisory worker-based CES series as a proxy for all employee hours 
and earnings data. The production worker series will be dropped only 
after the new series are well established and acceptable to BLS and its 
users, including having sufficient data observations to allow for 
seasonal adjustment.
    An additional motivation for change is the difficulty of collecting 
hours and earnings information from respondents using the current CES 
production/non-supervisory worker definitions. Many respondents' 
payroll records do not allow them to readily identify workers according 
to CES definitions. Interviews with respondents and large payroll 
processing firms indicate that all employee payroll would be more 
reportable.
    The decision to eliminate collection of a separate women workers 
data item is based on several factors: (1) Respondent burden; (2) an 
assessment of the relative number of users of this series; and (3) the 
availability of these data from other sources such as the Current 
Population Survey (which provides a large body of other related 
demographic information). Because this data series does not have a 
large number of users and there is an alternative source for these 
data, the BLS believes that the respondent burden to continue 
collection of these data is not justified, especially considering the 
increase in burden associated with collecting the new data elements 
which have more wide-ranging uses.

IV. Current Action

    Office of Management and Budget Clearance is being sought for the 
Report on Employment, Payroll, and Hours (BLS-790).
    Type of Review: Revision of a currently approved collection.
    Agency: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    Title: Report on Employment, Payroll, and Hours (BLS-790).
    OMB Number: 1220-0011.
    Affected Public: State or local governments; Businesses or other 
for-profit; Non-profit institutions; Small businesses or organizations.

 
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                                                                                                        Annual
                Form                    Number of      Minutes per    Frequency of       Annual         burden
                                       respondents       report         response        responses       hours
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A--Natural Resources and Mining....           1,400              10              12          16,800        2,800
B--Construction....................          12,800              10              12         153,600       25,600
C--Manufacturing...................          18,000              10              12         216,000       36,000
E--Service Providing Industries....         153,300              10              12       1,839,600      306,600
G--Public Administration...........          56,700               5              12         680,400       56,700
S--Education.......................           4,000               5              12          48,000        4,000
F1, F2, F3 Fax Forms...............          36,400              10              12         436,800       72,800
                                    -----------------
  Total............................         282,600  ..............  ..............       3,391,200      504,500
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    Total Burden Cost (capital/startup): $0.
    Total Burden Cost (operating/maintenance): $0.
    Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized 
and/or included in the request for Office of Management and Budget 
approval of the information collection request; they also will become a 
matter of public record.

    Signed at Washington, DC, this 13th day of December 2004.
Cathy Kazanowski,
Chief, Division of Management Systems, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
[FR Doc. E4-3731 Filed 12-21-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510-24-P