Current Population Survey, January 2006: Displaced Workers, Employee Tenure, and Occupational Mobility Supplement

This data collection is comprised of responses from two sets of survey questionnaires, the basic Current Population Survey (CPS) and a survey on the topic of displaced workers, employee tenure, and occupational mobility in the United States, which was administered as a supplement to the January CPS questionnaire. The CPS, administered monthly, is a labor force survey providing current estimates of the economic status and activities of the population of the United States. Specifically, the CPS provides estimates of total employment (both farm and nonfarm), nonfarm self-employed persons, domestics, and unpaid helpers in nonfarm family enterprises, wage and salaried employees, and estimates of total unemployment. Data from the CPS are provided for the week prior to the survey. All persons eligible for the labor force items of the basic CPS were also eligible for the supplement. The supplement was designed to be a proxy response supplement, meaning a single respondent could provide answers for all eligible household members, provided the respondent was a household member 15 years of age or older. Persons 20 years of age and older, who lost or left a job in the last three years for selected reasons, were eligible for the first part of the supplement, which consists of the displaced workers items. Employed persons 15 years of age and older were eligible for the second part of the supplement, which consists of the employee tenure and occupational mobility items. Respondents were queried on involuntary job loss within the last three years based on operating decisions of a firm, plant, or business, reasons for job displacement, industry and occupation of the former job, group health insurance coverage, job tenure, and weekly earnings. Additional data refer to periods of unemployment as well as number of jobs held, use of unemployment benefits, whether residence was changed to seek work in another area, and current health insurance coverage. Near the conclusion of the supplement, the household was asked a few questions about job losses due to Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast area in August 2005. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income.