Note to Reviewer

08-10-2010

Note to Reviewer of 1220-0181

The 2010 Congressional Appropriation tasks the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program has been with producing data on green goods and services business employment. This initiative will produce regular tabulations of aggregate employment and wages for businesses whose primary activities fall into green goods and services as defined by BLS.  These series will be key to analyzing workforce trends in this area.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved an emergency clearance for the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) Green Goods and Services Sector Industry Pre-testing through a Notice of Action, dated March 23, 2010. The purpose of that request for clearance was for the QCEW program to initiate a research project to understand the collection environment and learn what information establishments have available that would help BLS collect data on green goods and services industry employment. As part of that approved information collection, BLS agreed to submit changes to the pre-testing materials to OMB through a non-substantive change request. This request provides those updated materials.

The research project plan includes feasibility and cognitive interviews, data collection forms design, panel testing, and follow-up interviews. Updates to the materials are outlined below.

• Feasibility and cognitive interviews – BLS plans to conduct feasibility interviews to better understand the collection environment. A small number of in-person cognitive interviews also will be done to test a respondent’s understanding of potential survey form questions.

Additional feasibility scripts have been added to cover more industry areas. In addition, updates have been made to the cover letter and the scripts previously provided in the full information collection package for construction, consulting/engineering, and products.

A cognitive interview recruitment script is now included. It is similar to the cover letter used for the feasibility interviews, but changes have been made to accommodate this as a telephone script. The recruitment script briefly mentions the research, the survey and what questions BLS is interested in getting answers to from the respondent (such as revenue and employment by product or service). During the visit, the respondent is asked to review (and complete if possible) the form. The interviewer than takes the respondent through each question on the form asking for the respondent’s interpretation and understanding of the form, the instructions, and the questions.

• Data collection forms design - BLS plans to test multiple variations on a form during this research project.

• Panel testing – BLS plans to test the form variations on panels of respondents. The panels will be mailed the forms and will be asked to return the forms by mail. Non-response prompting and edit reconciliation processes will also be tested and conducted on these panels.

Panel 1 - An updated cover letter is now included in the information collection materials. The original forms have been updated and additional forms are included to cover more industry areas.

Panel 2 - Cover letters and forms for panel 2 also are included. In panel 2, BLS is testing the use of an advance mailing letter on response rates. BLS also modified the cover letter to address single and multi firms (the multi letter has an additional paragraph). The forms were simplified based on results from panel 1.

Panel 3 – Cover letters and a form for panel 3 are included now. Changes have been made based on results from panel 2. Testing on the use of an advance mailing letter continues and a single cover letter is once again being tested. BLS also is testing a cover letter for a second mailing as well as a flyer aimed specifically at Government agencies and educational and non-profit organizations.

• Follow-up interviews - we plan to contact establishments that responded and establishments that did not respond to the form during panel testing to ask about the form, difficulty in completion, respondents’ understanding of the questions to assess response error, and reasons for non-response. All interviews will be conducted by an experienced interviewer.

The follow-up questions and non-response prompting that were included in the full information collection package have been updated. Additionally, follow-up questions for respondents who filled out the forms incorrectly have been added.