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Do we even trust our leaders to help?
Retiring old ideas about retirement
Social Security more solvent than most Americans realize
Focus group participants discuss retirement
Series looks at middle-class angst
Insurance misery has no easy cure
Health-care matchup finds Ohio falls short
Most Read Stories
Man robbed at Tallmadge Avenue eatery
Four teens restrain man, take items from his Akron home
Another winter punch heading toward Ohio
Complaints against officer keep coming
Police: Ohio girl dies after fall into snow bank
Cuyahoga Falls residents come home to find burning couch on balcony
Blogs:
First Bell - On Education:
No City of Akron basketball tonight
Pets:
Pet telethon re-airs
The Heldenfiles:
Chipmunks "Squeakquel" on DVD/BD March 30
Akron Zips:
Late surge gives Zips ugly road win
Tribe Matters:
Blogmail response on Hafner
Cleveland Browns:
Stallworth's contract terminated
Balanced Ledger:
Kent State Sports:
KSU Notes – February 9
Cleveland Cavaliers:
NBA Power Rankings from Around the Internet
Buckeye Blogging:
Buckeyes grab 18 players on signing day
Varsity Letters:
Garfield at Buchtel basketball
All Da King's Men:
Palin At The Tea Party Convention
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Republican Pre-Conditions
Akron Law Café:
Citizens United v. F.E.C. (Part 4): Kennedy's and O'Connor's Basic Approaches to Constitutional Decisionmaking – Top Down and Bottom Up
Car Chase:
Collector Car Hobby Loses One of the Best—Jim Roll
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Decisions Decisions: Credit Cards or Your Mortgage?
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Loucile is looking for a Lake Erie getaway in June for three kids, ages 1, 3, and 5.
Sound Check:
Talk of the Town – Top entertainment picks for the weekend
HRLite House:
Track HR Research
Akron Gamer:
Makers of 'Castle Crashers' unveil 'BattleBlock Theater'
See Jane Style:
Do IT this week: Layering
Published on Sunday, May 25, 2008
News stories about the loss of middle-management jobs are common, but numbers to document the trend are harder to find.
That's largely because of the way the government keeps count of workers.
Job numbers most often cited by public officials, economists and business people come from a monthly report, Current Employment Statistics, compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from a survey of more than 150,000 businesses and government agencies.
A second source, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, provides more accurate but less timely data.
As its name implies, the census is an exact count of workers and their pay, based on reports businesses must file with states for all those covered by unemployment insurance.
The problem is that both the survey and census classify employees according to where they work — not by what they do. As a result, management workers aren't counted as a group; they're spread out among the myriad of industry sectors.
For example, a personnel director for an auto-parts maker is counted among manufacturing employees, while a hospital personnel director is classified in the health-care sector.
The government does have a survey, Occupational Employment Statistics, that groups people by the work they do. But that survey has existed in its current form for less than a decade. More important, it's updated only once a year and isn't designed to allow easy comparisons to earlier years.
''Our focus is on producing wages and employment for one given point in time,'' said George Stamas, chief of the Occupational Employment Statistics program.
It was the occupational employment data that the Beacon Journal analyzed for this report.
—David Knox
News stories about the loss of middle-management jobs are common, but numbers to document the trend are harder to find.
That's largely because of the way the government keeps count of workers.
Job numbers most often cited by public officials, economists and business people come from a monthly report, Current Employment Statistics, compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from a survey of more than 150,000 businesses and government agencies.
A second source, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, provides more accurate but less timely data.
As its name implies, the census is an exact count of workers and their pay, based on reports businesses must file with states for all those covered by unemployment insurance.
The problem is that both the survey and census classify employees according to where they work — not by what they do. As a result, management workers aren't counted as a group; they're spread out among the myriad of industry sectors.
For example, a personnel director for an auto-parts maker is counted among manufacturing employees, while a hospital personnel director is classified in the health-care sector.
The government does have a survey, Occupational Employment Statistics, that groups people by the work they do. But that survey has existed in its current form for less than a decade. More important, it's updated only once a year and isn't designed to allow easy comparisons to earlier years.
''Our focus is on producing wages and employment for one given point in time,'' said George Stamas, chief of the Occupational Employment Statistics program.
It was the occupational employment data that the Beacon Journal analyzed for this report.
—David Knox
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