Question

The following is a description from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:

"Monthly Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey is a sample survey of business establishments that isconducted by state employment security agencies in cooperation with BLS. The CES (also known as BLS-790) asks about payroll employment in private nonagricultural industries during the pay period that includes the 12th of the month. The data collected include series for total employment, number of production or nonsupervisory workers, average hourly earnings, average weekly hours, average weekly earnings, and average weekly overtime hours in manufacturing industries. These source data are primarily used in estimating personal consumption expenditures, wages and salaries, and non-farm proprietors income. The CES data are usually released on the first Friday following the close of the reference month."

(a) Name the type of data for the following [interval, ordinal, or nominal]:

i. Industry

ii. Total Employment

iii. Average Weekly Earnings

iv. Firm Size Class

(note that classes are denoted class 1 (1 to 4 employees), class 2 (5 to 9 employees),

etc.)

(b) A prominent politician releases a statement saying the following: ”In April, total employment increased by

263,000 jobs. That means 263,000 people who weren’t working now have jobs and can feed their families.”

What is wrong with this statement?

Answer 1

Answer a:

• i. Industry is a Nominal Variable
• ii, Total Employment is a Nominal Variable
• iii. Average weekly earnings is a Interval Variable
• iv. Firm Size class is a Ordinal variable

Answer b:

”In April, total employment increased by

263,000 jobs. That means 263,000 people who weren’t working now have jobs and can feed their families.”

There are mistakes in this line-

• Instead of the terminology used "total employment" it could have been employment rate. As total employment refers to paid employment and Self employment and employment rate tells us how many people are employed

• How much time one works for one day is not mentioned.

These are the mistakes that I think is there in the line