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Sample Design
Information on job vacancies for the second quarter 2020 Minnesota Job Vacancy Survey comes from a survey of 5,562 Minnesota firms. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this was a smaller sample size than in past surveys, but was still designed to accurately reflect hiring activity in each of 6 planning regions in the state. Surveyed employers were randomly selected from Minnesota's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). These firms were selected from the universe of firms that were doing business in Minnesota during second quarter 2019. Firms were selected based on a sampling procedure that stratified by Economic Development Region, firm size (1 to 9 employees; 10 to 49 employees; 50 to 249 employees; and 250 employees or more), and 20 industrial sectors.
Twenty major industrial sectors, defined by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), are represented in the survey sample as shown in the table below:
NAICS INDUSTRY |
INDUSTRY DESCRIPTION |
Agriculture |
Firms engaged in growing crops, raising animals, harvesting timber, and harvesting fish and other animals from a farm, ranch, or their natural habitats. |
Mining |
Firms that extract naturally occurring mineral solids, such as coal and ores; liquid minerals, such as crude petroleum; and gasses, such as natural gas. |
Utilities |
Firms engaged in the provision of the following utility services: electric power, natural gas, steam supply, water supply, and sewage removal. |
Construction |
Firms engaged in the construction of buildings and other structures, heavy construction, additions, alterations, reconstruction, installations, and maintenance and repairs. |
Manufacturing |
Firms engaged in the mechanical, physical, or chemical transformation of materials, substances, or components into new products. |
Wholesale Trade |
Firms engaged in wholesale merchandising, generally without transformation, and rendering services incidental to the sale of merchandise. |
Retail Trade |
Firms engaged in retailing merchandise, generally without transformation, and rendering services incidental to the sale of merchandise. |
Transportation & Warehousing |
Firms engaged in the transportation of passengers and cargo, warehousing and storage for goods, scenic and sightseeing transportation, and support activities related to modes of transportation. |
Information |
Firms engaged in the production, processing and distribution of information and cultural products. |
Finance & Insurance |
Firms engaged in financial transactions (including the creation, liquidation, or change in ownership of financial assets) and/or facilitating financial transactions. |
Real Estate, Rental & Leasing |
Firms engaged in renting, leasing, or otherwise allowing for the use of tangible or intangible assets, and establishments providing related service. |
Professional & Technical Services |
Firms specializing in performing professional, scientific, and technical activities for others. |
Management of Companies |
Firms who hold the securities of companies and enterprises for the purpose of controlling interest or influencing management decisions or who administer, oversee, and manage the company in a strategic, organizational, or decision-making role. |
Admin. Support & Waste Mgmt. Svcs. |
Firms providing routine support activities for the day-to-day operations of other organizations. |
Educational Services |
Firms providing instruction and training on a wide variety of subjects. |
Health Care & Social Assistance |
Firms providing healthcare and social assistance to individuals. |
Arts, Entertainment & Recreation |
Firms engaged in providing services to meet the varied cultural, entertainment, and recreational interests of their patrons. |
Accommodation & Food Services |
Firms providing customers with lodging and/or preparation of meals, snacks and beverages for immediate consumption. |
Other Services |
Firms engaged in providing services not specifically provided for elsewhere in the classification system. |
Public Administration |
Federal, state and/or local agencies that administer, oversee, and manage public programs and have executive, legislative, or judicial authority over other institutions in a given area. |
Source: North American Industry Classification System, United States. NAICS Web page: www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/.
Firms excluded from the sampling process included those in private households and personnel service industries and those firms with no employees.
Contact information, firm size, and industry classification for firms were drawn from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data maintained by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). Additional contact information was obtained through telephone calls and websites.
About half of employers were sent letters and survey questionnaires during the quarter and asked to supply information on current job vacancies including rates of pay, education and experience requirements, and benefits. Firms without job vacancies were also asked to return the survey reporting “no vacancies”. Additional survey mailings and follow-up telephone calls were used to solicit survey responses. Data was collected by staff directly from firm websites for about 2,800 firms in the sample, which was a higher percentage than in past surveys due to complications with business availability during the coronavirus pandemic.
Following a review of the survey results and coding to an occupational (SOC) category (see section on SOC coding below), the data were scaled to produce estimates representative of Minnesota's labor market by Planning Region. The scaling process takes account of the distribution of job vacancies and overall employment by industry and size in the respondent group and in the universe of regional employers.
In second quarter 2005, we changed the regional stratification from Planning Regions to Economic Development Regions (EDR). Since the estimation method did not change and Planning Region level data are still produced, comparisons to previous rounds remain valid. In the second quarter of 2020, we changed the regional stratification back to Planning Regions.
Starting with the second quarter of 2007 survey round, we made some slight adjustments to the classification of the “very small” and “small” size classes. The “very small” size class was altered to include companies with one to nine employees, where before it included only employers with one to four employees. The “small” size class was adjusted to include only those companies with 10 to 49 employees. This change was made to better group smaller companies that have similar hiring practices. This change does produce a break in the time series for these size classifications.
Due to changes in methodology made for the fourth quarter of the 2001 survey round, comparisons of estimated job vacancies to the fourth quarter of 2000 and second quarter of 2001 rounds should be made with caution. In order to make any comparisons between all rounds of the survey, job vacancy totals from fourth quarter 2000 and second quarter 2001 were re-estimated. Comparisons of job vacancy totals in the Minnesota Job Vacancy Survey report use the re-estimated job vacancy totals and not the estimated job vacancies reported in the fourth quarter of 2000 and second quarter 2001 Minnesota Job Vacancy Survey reports.
Finally, in fourth quarter 2012 we made changes to the estimation process in response to an analysis conducted by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve in 2011 which showed that wage estimates probably understate wage offers in the population of job vacancies. The study found that our method of collecting some job vacancies on-line leads to a systematic underreporting of wages. This is due to the fact that fewer than 20 percent of job postings available on-line report wage offers and the job vacancies collected on-line tend to be the higher skill/wage vacancies (on-line collection tends to be done for the largest firms including headquarters, colleges and universities and hospitals, for example). Their recommendation was to impute wage offers.
In response, we are now imputing wage offers for all reported vacancies where wages are missing. We are also imputing education, experience, and benefits offered where they are missing. At this time, all estimates have been revised for all years available on our website.
For more information, please contact Oriane Casale or Cameron Macht in the Labor Market Information Office.
A total of 15,866 specific open-for-hire job titles were collected through the data collection process. Analysts reviewed these job titles and matched them to appropriate Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) titles. For the first time, the 2018 SOC structure was used in this study. The 2018 SOC Code structure is a set of six-digit occupational codes that is currently being used by a number of different agencies, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the Census, to classify occupations.
The 2018 SOC is a four-tiered structure with 867 detailed occupations that can be summarized into 459 broad occupations, 98 minor occupational groups, and 23 major occupational groups. For the purpose of this study, occupational information is presented at both the major occupational group and detailed occupational levels. Major occupational groups include the following:
MAJOR OCCUPATIONAL GROUP |
SAMPLE OCCUPATIONS |
Management |
Educational Administrators, Marketing Managers, and Medical and Health Service Managers |
Business and Financial Operations |
Accountants, Financial Analysts, and Human Resource Specialists |
Computer and Mathematical |
Actuaries, Computer Programmers, and Computer Support Specialists |
Architecture and Engineering |
Architects, Chemical Engineers, and Drafters |
Life, Physical and Social Science |
Anthropologists, Chemists, and Geographers |
Community and Social Service |
Clergy, Health Educators, and Marriage and Family Therapists |
Legal |
Court Reporters, Lawyers, and Paralegals |
Education, Training and Library |
Librarians, Post-secondary Teachers, and Special Education Teachers |
Art, Design, Entertainment Sports and Media |
Coaches, Producers and Directors, and Radio Operators |
Healthcare Practitioners and Technical |
Dentists, Physicians, and Registered Nurses |
Healthcare Support |
Dental Assistants, Home Health Aides, and Pharmacy Aides |
Protective Service |
Animal Control Workers, Detectives, and Police Officers |
Food Preparation and Serving Related |
Cooks, Food Preparation Workers, and Waiters and Waitresses |
Building, Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance |
Housekeeping Cleaners, Janitors, and Pest Control Workers |
Personal Care and Service |
Child Care Workers, Hairdressers and Hairstylists, and Personal and Home Care Aides |
Sales and Related |
Cashiers, Insurance Sales Agents, and Retail Salespersons |
Office and Administrative Support |
Customer Service Representatives, Tellers, and Secretaries |
Farming, Fishing and Forestry |
Agricultural Inspectors, Animal Breeders, and Farmers |
Construction and Extraction |
Construction Laborers, Carpenters, and Electricians |
Installation, Maintenance and Repair |
Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics, Motorcycle Mechanics, and Millwrights |
Production |
Butchers and Meat Cutters, Foundry Mold and Coremakers, and Machinists |
Transportation and Material Moving |
Airline Pilots, Bus Drivers, and Truck Drivers |
In matching employer job titles to detailed occupational SOC codes and titles, analysts were careful to match vague titles, such as "Laborer", to appropriate codes by examining industry, wage, education and experience information provided by employers and when necessary looking back at on-line job postings for more detail. As a result of this process, job vacancies for this round are reported in a total of 589 occupational codes. Not all of these are published: Three firms must be represented in a cell to meet publication criteria.
For more information on the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System, see the SOC Web page at: www.bls.gov/soc/.
The Local Employment and Wage Information System (LEWIS) provides occupational employment estimates for the state of Minnesota and its 6 Planning Regions. LEWIS uses the results of the annual Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) in the calculation of employment within occupational groups and detailed occupations for user-defined areas such as the state, Greater Minnesota, and the Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area.
The overall survey response rate for this round is 78.0% (4,338 of 5,562). The following tables provide response rates by survey strata.
Survey Response Rates by Firm Size and Industry for Minnesota
Size of Firm |
Sample |
Received |
Response Rate |
Very Small (1 to 9 employees) |
917 |
624 |
68.0% |
Small (10 to 49 employees) |
1,297 |
908 |
70.0% |
Medium (50 to 249 employees) |
1,896 |
1,486 |
78.4% |
Large (250 or more employees) |
1,452 |
1,321 |
91.0% |
Industry |
Sample |
Received |
Response Rate |
Accommodation & Food Services |
621 |
407 |
65.5% |
Admin. Support & Waste Mgmt. Svcs. |
141 |
105 |
74.5% |
Agriculture |
106 |
75 |
70.8% |
Arts, Entertainment & Recreation |
163 |
117 |
71.8% |
Construction |
248 |
166 |
66.9% |
Educational Services |
290 |
255 |
87.9% |
Finance & Insurance |
193 |
166 |
86.0% |
Health Care & Social Assistance |
916 |
726 |
79.3% |
Information |
140 |
114 |
81.4% |
Management of Companies |
198 |
159 |
80.3% |
Manufacturing |
540 |
438 |
81.1% |
Mining |
78 |
57 |
73.1% |
Other Services |
169 |
120 |
71.0% |
Professional & Technical Services |
336 |
251 |
74.7% |
Public Administration |
240 |
239 |
99.6% |
Real Estate |
105 |
74 |
70.5% |
Retail Trade |
572 |
145 |
78.0% |
Transportation & Warehousing |
216 |
172 |
79.6% |
Utilities |
104 |
94 |
90.4% |
Wholesale Trade |
186 |
145 |
78.0% |
Total |
5,562 |
4,338 |
78.0% |