No one takes pictures of a certain type of infrastructure. No building to point to, no plaque, no ribbon-cutting. One of those things is the Workforce Information System, a vast, largely unseen arrangement between federal agencies and state offices that subtly addresses a question that most people never consider: how can anyone truly know what’s going on in the labor market?
The Employment and Training Administration, the Census Bureau (external site), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (external site), and about fifty state employment agencies all contribute data to a common framework. It’s not a glamorous job. Surveys are conducted, data is gathered, and projections are created based on growth assumptions that might or might not materialize. Nevertheless, it culminates in something greater than any one report—a sort of ongoing log of who is employed, who is not, and where the positions are.
Looking into this, I’ve been struck by how much of contemporary life depends on statistics that no one can see being gathered. Whether she is aware of it or not, a small business owner choosing where to open a second location depends on the same data infrastructure that a state legislator uses to support funding for job training. A hedge fund analyst analyzing unemployment trends is interacting with the same system as a teen choosing a community college. Although the overlap seems almost coincidental, it is part of the entire design.
Information is arranged in layers by the system. Data on labor market conditions is available, which monitors the general movement of people into and out of the workforce. Industry data is available, arranged according to what companies genuinely produce. Occupational data goes one step further and breaks things down by the type of work itself, including skill requirements, salary ranges, and the demands of a particular job. Then there are forecasts, lists of businesses, data on open positions, and personal information gleaned from job-seeker files and training programs. Its thoroughness is almost bureaucratic, which is probably the point.
A system this disjointed, with federal agencies coordinating with state ones, each with their own peculiarities, is likely to result in gaps, according to critics. That’s probably reasonable. Projections based on economic assumptions are only as accurate as those assumptions prove to be, and state-level reporting varies. Until a recession or abrupt change in trade policy occurs, no one can truly predict how it will affect occupational forecasts.
Nevertheless, this system’s clientele is surprisingly diverse. It is used by researchers to examine the behavior of labor markets. It is used by counselors to give students advice. It is used by elected officials to defend their budgets. A dataset with such a broad customer base—which includes both teenagers completing the FAFSA and individuals making six-figure investment decisions—is uncommon.
The entire apparatus, including state cooperatives, government agencies, and statistical programs that date back decades, seems almost antiquated, even though the digital economy is far more ostentatious. It was never intended to be glamorous, and it isn’t. However, if you follow the thread far enough on practically any labor market headline, you will eventually arrive here, in the unremarkable plumbing that helps to maintain some focus on the American workplace.
