Occupation Data vs. Industry Data

When we updated our ACS data in December, one category of data we added was occupation data. You may be asking, haven’t we had occupation data for a while? We’ve written about lumberjacks more than once on this blog, right?

Until this update, we’ve had industry data on PolicyMap, coming from multiple sources, including the Census’s County Business Patterns (CBP) and BLS’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). But industry data is different than occupation data.

Industry data shows what type of business a given job is at. Occupation data shows what kind of job it actually is. For instance, if a truck driver works for a lumber company, the industry is forestry and logging, but the occupation is transportation. And an accountant working for the same lumber company would have an occupation categorized as business and financial operations.

So why would you choose one over the other? If you wanted to know the specific nature of the work people were doing, and what their experience and training is in, then you’d want to look at occupation data. So if you wanted to see where doctors and nurses are living, you’d look at occupation data.

But if you wanted to look at the economic impact of certain businesses, then you’d want to look at industry data. Only a fraction of healthcare employees are treating patients; hospitals and doctors’ offices employ all sorts of supporting positions. So for that, you’d want to look at industry data.

There are some key technical differences in the data to be aware of. The occupation data comes from a household survey; the industry data (CBP and QCEW) comes from administrative data reported by businesses. Therefore, the occupation data is based on where employees live; the industry data is based on where they work. The occupation data is based on how an employee self-identifies their work; the industry data is based on official unemployment insurance filings. And then there’s LEHD data, which is administrative industry data on both employees home and work locations (but has less precise industry categories than CBP and QCEW)

All of these datasets are in the Economy menu, right at the top in the “Jobs & Industries” sections.