[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 187 (Friday, September 25, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 60418-60419]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-21233]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Census Bureau


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment 
Request; Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD)

AGENCY: Census Bureau, Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of information collection, request for comment.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Commerce, in accordance with the Paperwork 
Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), invites the general public and other 
Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information 
collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information 
collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. The 
purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment on the 
proposed extension of the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data 
collection, prior to the submission of the information collection 
request (ICR) to OMB for approval.

DATES: To ensure consideration, comments regarding this proposed 
information collection must be received on or before November 24, 2020.

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit written comments by 
mail to [email protected]. Please reference OMB Control Number 0607-
1001 in the subject line of your comments. You may also submit 
comments, identified by Docket Number USBC-2020-0006, to the Federal e-
Rulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. All comments received 
are part of the public record. No comments will be posted to http://www.regulations.gov for public viewing until after the comment period 
has closed. Comments will generally be posted without change. All 
Personally Identifiable Information (for example, name and address) 
voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly accessible. Do 
not submit Confidential Business Information or otherwise sensitive or 
protected information. You may submit attachments to electronic 
comments in Microsoft Word, Excel, or Adobe PDF file formats.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or 
specific questions related to collection activities should be directed 
to Keith Bailey, Assistant Center Chief, (301) 763-2923, 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Abstract

    A 21st century statistical system must provide information about 
the dynamic economy quickly, using data assets efficiently while 
minimizing the burden of collecting and providing data and fully 
preserving confidentiality. The Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-
Household Dynamics (LEHD) data infrastructure has demonstrated the 
power and usefulness of linking multiple business and employee data 
sets with state-of-the-art confidentiality protections to build a 
longitudinal national frame of jobs.
    LEHD supports the Department of Commerce plan to improve American 
competitiveness and measures of innovation. It provides federal, state, 
and local policymakers and planners, businesses, private sector 
decision makers, and Congress with comprehensive and timely national, 
state, and local information on the dynamic nature of employers and 
employees.
    LEHD significantly reduces the overall effort for the generation of 
its quarterly data product by:
     Leveraging existing federal administrative and state data.
     Avoiding costs required to expand existing surveys to 
collect the information directly.
     Reducing respondent burden by limiting the number of 
required resources to just the owners of the required data.
    LEHD is a result of the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) 
Partnership. The LED Partnership is a partnership between the US Census 
Bureau and the Labor Market Information (LMI) agencies from 50 states, 
the District of Columbia, and the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and 
the U.S. Virgin Islands. This partnership supports the development, 
promotion, and distribution of the following public-use data products:
     Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI)--LEHD's flagship data 
product is the Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) which provides 32 
statistical indicators on employment, job creation and destruction, 
accessions (hires and recalls), and separations (e.g., exits and 
layoffs). These statistics are released for the following by-groups for 
all quarters for which data are available for each partner state:
    [cir] County, metropolitan, and workforce development area.
    [cir] Age, sex, race, and ethnicity categories.
    [cir] Business characteristics (i.e., detailed industry ownership 
type, firm age, firm size).
     LEHD Origin Destination Employment Statistics (LODES)--
LODES data provide detailed spatial distributions of workers' 
employment and residential locations and the relation between the two 
at the Census Block level. LODES also provides characteristic detail on 
age, earnings, industry distributions, and other worker/business 
characteristics.
     Job-to-Job Flows (J2J)--Job-to-Job Flows (J2J) is a set of 
statistics on job mobility in the United States constructed by the LEHD 
program. J2J include statistics on: (1) The job-to-job transition rate, 
(2) hires and separations to and from employment, (3) earnings changes 
due to job change, and (4) characteristics of origin and destination 
jobs for job-to-job transitions. These statistics are available at the 
national, state, and metropolitan area levels and by worker and firm 
characteristics.
     Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO)--Post-Secondary 
Employment Outcomes (PSEO) is an experimental set of statistics on the 
earnings and employment outcomes of graduates of select post-secondary 
institutions in the United States, and is constructed using data from 
LEHD. Earnings Outcomes reports earnings by institution, degree field, 
degree level and graduation cohort for 1, 5 and 10 years after 
graduation. Employment Flows tabulations provide the destination 
industry and geography of employment for graduates of an institution by 
degree level, degree field, and graduation cohort, for one, five, and 
10 years after graduation. A limited number of institutions are 
available as part of the pilot release, but future updates will include 
additional post-secondary institutions.
    These data products highlight state and local labor market dynamics 
that cannot be learned from other statistical sources and are therefore 
used in many different arenas. For example, the QWI can be used as 
local-labor-market controls in regression analysis; to identify long-
term trends; to provide local context in performance evaluations; and 
for a host of other applications.

[[Page 60419]]

II. Method of Collection

    The collection of data occurs in accordance with the rules 
established by interagency agreements with the participating state 
partners or data sharing agreements that have been established within 
the Census Bureau. For state partners, their data is submitted directly 
to the Census secure servers where Personally Identifiable Information 
(PII) goes through a process to replace it with Protected 
Identification Keys (PIK). This PVS (Person Identification Validation 
System) process also applies to all other administrative data that are 
used in the LEHD infrastructure. For all other required administration 
data, they are transferred or referenced by the LEHD production system. 
Data collection and processing also includes activities such as 
validation of data quality.
    LEHD's data products are not generated by a traditional survey. 
Rather, all input data required is collected electronically as follows:
     State Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Quarterly Census of 
Employment and Wages (QCEW) are provided via encrypted File Transfer 
Protocol (FTP) through which each state LMI agency sends these data 
directly to the Census Bureau. This transfer of data is governed by 
Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) with each state partner.
     Federal and Census Administrative data are acquired from 
other directorates or divisions within the Census Bureau with which an 
internal agreement has been established for the use of the data.
     Public Use data sets are acquired from publicly available 
websites or public File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers.

III. Data

    OMB Control Number: 0607-1001.
    Form Number(s): None.
    Type of Review: Regular submission, Request for an Extension, 
without Change, of a Currently Approved Collection.
    Affected Public: State government, specifically labor market 
information bureaus and unemployment insurance administrators.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: As defined in Table III-1.
    Estimated Time per Response: No more than 8 hours required to 
identify and send/post required data sets.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 1728 hours.
    Estimated Total Annual Cost to Public: $0. (This is not the cost of 
respondents' time, but the indirect costs respondents may incur for 
such things as purchases of specialized software or hardware needed to 
report, or expenditures for accounting or records maintenance services 
required specifically by the collection.)
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
    Legal Authority: The authority to develop LEHD is 13 U.S.C. Section 
6. Of course, confidentiality is assured by 13 U.S.C. Section 9.

IV. Request for Comments

    We are soliciting public comments to permit the Department/Bureau 
to: (a) Evaluate whether the proposed information collection is 
necessary for the proper functions of the Department, including whether 
the information will have practical utility; (b) Evaluate the accuracy 
of our estimate of the time and cost burden for this proposed 
collection, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions 
used; (c) Evaluate ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of 
the information to be collected; and (d) Minimize the reporting burden 
on those who are to respond, including the use of automated collection 
techniques or other forms of information technology.
    Comments that you submit in response to this notice are a matter of 
public record. We will include or summarize each comment in our request 
to OMB to approve this ICR. Before including your address, phone 
number, email address, or other personal identifying information in 
your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment--including 
your personal identifying information--may be made publicly available 
at any time. While you may ask us in your comment to withhold your 
personal identifying information from public review, we cannot 
guarantee that we will be able to do so.

Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief Information 
Officer, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2020-21233 Filed 9-24-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P