Economic Development Recovery and Resiliency Playbook - Flipbook - Page 46
• Private subscription-based data vendors, such as Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc. (EMSI) and JobsEQ, use
proprietary modeling to work around disclosure limitations, and include detailed geography at the ZIP code-level for
subcounty findings.31, 32, 33
• Private subscription-based mapping or location data vendors, such as ESRI and GIS Planning/Zoom Prospector, are
online tools that use a combination of public and proprietary data for analysis and visualizations. 34, 35
• Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) is a synthetic database that combines multiple sources through the
Census Bureau. It includes geographic detail down to the Census Block Group level and allows comparisons between the
labor force and jobs.36
• On The Map web application is a mapping tool that accesses the LEHD data and provides ready-made visualizations. 37
• StatsAmerica is a publicly accessible, economic development-focused online data tool from the U.S. Economic
Development Administration (EDA) and Indiana University that provides a user-friendly interface for accessing
summarized federal data and generating custom reports.38
• County Business Patterns is an annually updated source for establishment size data that includes employment and wage
data as well as ZIP code-level data.39
• Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics websites provide access to numerous data programs that include
employment and labor force indicators.40
• Custom data runs from the California Employment Development Department are available to individual municipalities,
which can acquire employment, wage, and establishment data from the agency for a fee.
• Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices track job layofs by location and individual business.
These requirements only apply to employers with 75 or more employees over the past 12 months. These are posted on
the EDD website at least 60 days in advance.41
Sources of Company Information
While publicly available employment data provides useful information about a community’s economic base, it does have a
notable gap: it does not include data about individual businesses and takes active steps not to disclose that kind of information.
Private-sector business databases can fill this gap by providing information about individual businesses. These data records
include other information not tracked by publicly accessible sources, such as location square footage, contact information,
ownership information, and whether the business is part of a publicly traded corporation. Examples of private-sector business
data vendors include subscription and transaction-based services, such as Dun & Bradstreet and Data Axle (formerly InfoUSA).42, 43
The business databases’ shortcomings include individual records that are not updated at the same intervals, which limits their
utility for time series analysis, and imprecise estimates for jobs and revenues when more exact information is not available for an
individual business.44
31
https://www.economicmodeling.com/
https://www.chmura.com/software
33
The EMSI data began including Census Tract-level employment data as an experimental feature in February 2021. JobsEQ allows for geography to be
defined using city boundaries.
34
https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-online/overview
35
https://zoomprospector.com/
36
https://lehd.ces.census.gov/
37
https://onthemap.ces.census.gov/
38
http://www.statsamerica.org/Default.aspx
39
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/data/tables.html
40
https://data.census.gov/cedsci/
41
https://edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN.htm
42
https://www.dnb.com/
43
https://www.data-axle.com/our-data/business-data/
44
The National Establishment Time Series (NETS) database produced by Walls & Associates converts the Dun & Bradstreet data into a format that allows for
time-series comparisons. Information about the NETS database can be requested by contacting Walls & Associates.
32
38
CALED | Economic Development Recovery and Resiliency Playbook
