MNI INTERVIEW: US BLS Adds Virus Questions to May Jobs Survey

By Brooke Migdon

     WASHINGTON (MNI) - New coronavirus questions being fielded this week by the

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as part of its May employment survey will help

assess changes in labor costs and productivity but will not have any effect on

official measures of participation or unemployment, officials told MNI. 

     Five questions added to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly household

survey will gauge how the coronavirus outbreak has affected respondents'

employment status, earnings and ability to search for new work, Julie Hatch

Maxfield, BLS associate commissioner for employment and unemployment statistics,

said in an interview.

     The responses won't be made public until July at earliest and won't affect

metrics like the official labor force participation or unemployment rates, which

suffered from data integrity issues in March and April, she said. 

     But the new data will clear some of the "fog" around traditional

indicators, offering more details on the impact of Covid-19 and potentially

insights into labor productivity and cost trends, Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau, vice

president of macroeconomic research at the Federal Reserve Bank of San

Francisco, told MNI. 

     --LABOR COST, PRODUCTIVITY

     An added question on the respondent's ability to telework during the

pandemic could help researchers gauge whether working from home impacts worker

productivity, Petrosky-Nadeau said.

     Another question on how the respondent's hours and pay changed during the

pandemic could help assess whether labor cost for the employer had risen, as

well as how different industries adapted to stay-at-home orders. 

     With responses linked to detailed information about each respondent and his

or her job, policymakers will also be able to see how the pandemic is

"disproportionately affecting" sectors of the economy, different age and racial

groups and household structures, he said.  

     "Four-to-five months from now as we have several months of data and several

data points that line up, we'll be able to see trends in the labor market. And

from that point on, this information will be helpful in knowing how the road to

recovery is progressing," Petrosky-Nadeau said. 

     --MISCLASSIFICATION

     The BLS will not "go back and recode how someone appeared earlier" based on

an individual's answers to the added questions, even if evidence of

misclassification is found, Hatch Maxfield said.

     The BLS said in its April employment report that a large volume of

unemployed workers who had lost their job because of the coronavirus were

incorrectly classified by data collectors and the true unemployment rate was

likely closer to 19% not seasonally adjusted, nearly 5 percentage points higher

than the reported 14.4%.

     Hatch Maxfield said the BLS and Census, who jointly produce the Current

Population Survey, have not updated their guidance for interviewers this month,

but have been working with collectors to mitigate classification errors.

--MNI Washington Bureau; +1 202 371 2121; email: brooke.migdon@marketnews.com

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