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Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
Bureau of Labor Statistics > Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages >

QCEW Over‐the‐Year Change Calculation Details

Over-the-year (OTY) level and percent changes are available for QCEW data points from the Open Data Access files and from the CSV files on the QCEW Data Files page. These files contain OTY changes for QCEW data points that represent averages. Each OTY field was calculated using the rounded values present in the file. For example, the OTY Average weekly wage value is calculated by subtracting the prior quarter's AWW from the current quarter's AWW instead of calculating the differences of the underlying components of AWW first, then re-calculating AWW.

Over-the-year level changes represent the change between the given data point, and that same data point for the prior year. For example, the over-the-year change in "month 3" employment for second quarter 2019 data is the change that occurred between June 2018 employment and June 2019 employment. See example below.


     [2019 Q2 OTY Month 3 Employment Change] = [2019 Q2 Month 3 Employment] - [2018 Q2 Month 3 Employment]

Over-the-year (OTY) percent changes represent the percent change between the given data point, and that same data point for the prior year. For example, the over-the-year percent change in "month 3" employment for second quarter 2019 data is the percent change that occurred between June 2018 employment and June 2019 employment. OTY percent changes are rounded to the tenths place. See example below.


     current = [2019 Q2 Month 3 Employment]

     prior = [2018 Q2 Month 3 Employment]

     [2019 Q2 OTY Month 3 Employment % Change]  =  100 * ( (current - prior) / prior )

     NOTE: OTY percent changes are rounded to the tenths place.


Related Documentation:   QCEW Data Guide;   Documentation Guide;   QCEW Data Files;   Open Data Access Guide;  

 

Last Modified Date: January 9, 2020