Glossy of Terms

Question 1

Active Applicant

Answer 1

Any job-seeking registrant who has actively participated in job-seeking activities within the prescribed time frame. In the Utah system, registrants are active for 60 days past their last service date or until they enter employment. Registrants may re-activate at any time.

Question 2

Average Monthly Wage

Answer 2

Total annual wages divided by the number of employers on nonagricultural payrolls divided by 12.

Question 3

Civilian Labor Force

Answer 3

The number of individuals who are at least 16 years old and are employed or unemployed. People who are not working or actively looking for work are not included in the labor force.

Question 4

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

Answer 4

CPI-U: Represents all urban consumers. It covers about 87 percent of the U.S. population. CPI-W: Represents wage earners and clerical workers. It covers about 32 percent of the population.

Question 5

Current Employment Statistics Survey (CES)

Answer 5

A federal-state cooperative statistical program designed to estimate current national, state and sub-state employment levels. CES also provides estimates for hours worked, wages earned, total number of production workers and total number of female workers, among other data points.

Question 6

Current Population Survey (CPS)

Answer 6

A nationwide survey conducted each month by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Information is gathered from a sample of 50,000 households to represent the civilian non-institutional population of persons who are at least 16 years old. Each state has a portion of the CPS, which is the basis for state labor force data and unemployment rates.

Question 7

Discouraged Workers

Answer 7

Persons not in the labor force who want and are available for a job and have looked for work in the past 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but are not currently looking because they believe there are no jobs available or there are none for which they qualify.

Question 8

Durable Goods

Answer 8

Manufactured items with a normal life expectancy of three years or more. Automobiles, furniture, household appliances and mobile homes are durable goods. Because of their nature, expenditures for durable goods can generally be postponed. Consequently, durable goods sale are a more volatile component of consumer expenditures.

Question 9

Economic Service Areas (ESA)

Answer 9

DWS is divided into nine areas for planning and administration.

Bear River: Box Elder, Cache and Rich

Wasatch Front North: Davis, Morgan and Weber

Wasatch Front South: Salt Lake and Tooele

Mountainland: Juab, Summit, Utah and Wasatch

Uintah Basin: Daggett, Duchesne and Uintah

Castle Country: Carbon and Emery

Southeast: Grand and San Juan

Central Utah: Millard, Piute, Sanpete, Sevier and Wayne

Southwest: Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane and Washington

Question 10

Employed Persons

Answer 10

An estimate of the number of persons age 16 and over who 1) did any work at least one hour as paid employees, worked in their own business profession or on their own farm or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in a business operated by a member of the family and 2) were not working but had jobs or businesses from which they were temporarily absent. Each employed person is counted only once even if he or she held more than one job.

Question 11

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)

Answer 11

A program that became law with the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. Employers, labor unions, employment agencies and labor management apprenticeship programs must actively seek to eliminate discrimination against and increase employment for females and minorities. This 1972 law, later strengthened by executive orders, requires employers to draw up a detailed written plan for equalizing economic salaries, training programs, fringe benefits and other conditions of employment. These plans included numerical goals and timetables for achieving such changes.

Question 12

Establishments

Answer 12

Any firm, organization or division for which data are separately reported to the Utah Department of Workforce Services, i.e., individual physical facilities such as store plants, offices and other work sites.

Question 13

FirmFind

Answer 13

A DWS tool that provides names, addresses, phone numbers, industry and employment size of virtually all firms in Utah. Information is available for a specific county, groups of counties or the entire state.

Question 14

Full-Time Worker

Answer 14

A worker who usually works 35 or more hours per week.

Question 15

Forecast Data

Answer 15

Data based on future projections or estimates. The data will usually change when the future becomes the past.

Question 16

Goods-Producing Industries

Answer 16

Industry sectors in this group include natural resources and mining, construction and manufacturing (durable and nondurable).

Question 17

Household

Answer 17

All persons — related family members and all unrelated persons — who occupy a housing unit.

Question 18

Householder

Answer 18

The person (or one of the persons) under whose name a household unit is owned or rented.

Question 19

Industry

Answer 19

A group of establishments that produce similar products or provide similar services. For example, all establishments that manufacture automobiles are in the same industry. A given industry, or even a particular establishment in that industry, might have employees in dozens of occupations. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) groups similar establishments into industries.

Question 20

Inexperienced Wage

Answer 20

The bottom third of a survey and the wage someone just starting out in the occupation would likely make.

Question 21

Inflation

Answer 21

A process of continuously rising prices or a continuously falling value of money.

Question 22

Job Vacancy Study (JVS)

Answer 22

A Department of Workforce Services administered survey intended to measure the quantity and characteristics of the demand for labor in Utah. Survey outputs include estimates of job openings in Utah by area, occupation and industry.

Question 23

ACCRA (Cost of Living Index)

Answer 23

A quarterly survey associated with the American Chamber of Commerce Research Association. The survey provides comparisons of prices between about 300 cities, indexed so 100 is the average of U.S. cities. An index of more than 100 means it costs more than average to live in that city. In Utah the survey usually reports on Salt Lake, Provo and Orem, Logan, St. George and Cedar City.

Question 24

Labor Force

Answer 24

See “Civilian Labor Force”

Question 25

Labor Force Participation Rate

Answer 25

The civilian non-institutionalized population age 16 and older of an area divided into the area’s civilian labor force, expressed as a percentage or rate.

Question 26

Labor Market

Answer 26

A geographic area where workers can reside and work.

Question 27

Labor Market Information (LMI)

Answer 27

The body of information that deals with the functioning of labor markets and the determination of the demand for and supply of labor. It includes but is not limited to such key factors as changes in the level or composition of economic activity, the population, employment and unemployment, occupation, income, earnings, wage rates and fringe benefits.

Question 28

Local Employment Dynamics (LED)

Answer 28

An online tool that provides employment, job creation, turnover and earnings by industry, age, sex and race or ethnicity; dynamic information that reflects the rapidly changing economy. Information is available for a specific county, groups of counties or the entire state.

Question 29

Market Basket

Answer 29

A package of goods and services that consumers purchase for day-to-day living. The weight of each item is based on the amount of expenditure reported by a sample of households.

Question 30

Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS)

Answer 30

A federal-state cooperative statistical program that identifies, tracks and describes mass layoff actions. An establishment is considered to have had a potential mass layoff if 50 or more former workers file an initial Unemployment Insurance claim during a consecutive five-week period.

Question 31

Median Wage

Answer 31

The midpoint of ranked data and usually the best measure of central tendency as it is less affected by outliers and skewed data.

Question 32

Metropolitan Statistical Area

Answer 32

As defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, an urban area that meets specified criteria: either it has a core city of at least 500,000 inhabitants within a county or economically linked group of counties, or it contains an urbanized area of at least 50,000 inhabitants and has a total population of at least 100,000. Salt Lake City, Utah, is an example.

Question 33

Micropolitan Statistical Area

Answer 33

Smaller geographic areas that have at least one urban cluster of at least 10,000 people but less than 50,000 plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties. Brigham City, Utah, is an example.

Question 34

Middle Range

Answer 34

The middle fifty percent of a range of data. Twenty-five percent of the observations fall on the high end and twenty-five percent on the low end of the middle range.

Question 35

NAICS

Answer 35

The North American Industry Classification System. This is a new coding system that will replace the out-dated Standard Industrial Classification System.