QCEW Survey Justification

OMB Approval No. 1225-0059

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY AND CONFERENCE EVALUATION CLEARANCE FORM

A. SUPPLEMENTAL SUPPORTING STATEMENT

A.1. Title:

Understanding data user and data provider concerns about data quality and data confidentiality in the QCEW

A.2. Compliance with 5 CFR 1320.5:

Yes __X__ No _____

A.3. Assurances of confidentiality:

Respondent confidentiality will be assured by the Privacy Act.

A.4. Federal cost: $2,671
(60 hours of BLS employee work)

A.5. Requested expiration date (Month/Year): 09 / 2015

A.6. Burden Hour estimates:

a. Number of Respondents: 150

a.1. % Received Electronically 0%

b. Frequency: one-time

c. Average Response Time: 17 min

d. Total Annual Burden Hours: 42.5 hours

A7. Does the collection of information employ statistical methods?

___X___ No

_______ Yes (Complete Section B and attach BLS review sheet).

A.8. Abstract:

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), a product of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, publishes a quarterly count of employment and wages reported by employers and covers 98% of jobs in the U.S. QCEW is considering changing its disclosure limitations policy and is exploring how data users and data providers balance concerns about data quality and data confidentiality.

The program currently implements cell suppression as a disclosure limitation method, whereby some data are not disclosed in published tables in order to protect data considered to be potentially sensitive. Data users have expressed frustration with the 40-60% cell suppression rate in published tables and so research is needed to understand data user concerns about data quality. However, publishing more data changes the way that BLS protects respondent data and increases the probability that respondents may be identified. To the extent that a change in QCEW disclosure limitation policy may affect data provider cooperation, BLS must also understand data provider concerns about data confidentiality.

This study is a first step to explore data users’ and data providers’ ideas about data quality and data confidentiality in the context of the QCEW. There will be an emphasis on understanding concerns and attitudes towards disclosure limitation methodologies, so that those issues can be addressed in the development of any future disclosure limitation methods. The information collected in this set of exploratory interviews will be used for planning purposes only, serving two purposes: to be used to draft authentic QCEW data provider and data user scenarios for a planned second study; and to inform BLS understanding of the balance between data quality and confidentiality broadly as it may apply to other programs.

Our sample will come from a list provided by BLS staff from the QCEW office of individuals who may be willing to share their personal opinions as a data user or data provider about the impact of disclosure limitation methods. An additional set of contacts will be developed from outreach at meetings where disclosure limitation is discussed, such as the annual Data Users Advisory Committee meeting. Efforts will be made to select participants from a range of backgrounds. For data users, we will try to select participants from different institution types: government, industry, academia, non-profit. To the extent that data user needs may inform the points of interest for discussions with data providers (i.e., are data providers comfortable providing the information that data users want); data users will be targeted for interview first.

We will conduct up to 30 interviews. Recruiting prospective participants is estimated to take an additional 5 minutes per participant, with up to 150 participants contacted for a total of 42.5 burden hours.

Participants contacted	150
Total Recruitment Minutes	750 minutes
Participants interviewed	30
Total Interviewing Minutes	1800 minutes
Total Minutes	2550
Total burden hours	42.5

At the time of recruitment, prospective participants will be told that the interview will take no longer than one hour and that their responses will be held confidentially, as provided by the Privacy Act pledge. Participants will be asked for their permission to tape record the interview. Interviews will be conducted at the participant’s place of work or at the OSMR lab. All interviews will be scheduled with the participant in advance. When in-person visits are not possible, interviews will be conducted over the phone. We will aim to interview an equal number of data users and data providers.

We are only using the results from these interviews for planning purposes. We will share the results with the program office and BLS Disclosure Review Board. We are not employing statistical methods because we do not have a sample frame for all QCEW users and are not making inferences to the population. Rather, we are collecting a list of concerns.

Attached please find the interview protocol.

Program Official

Date

Departmental Clearance Officer

Date