New Job-to-Job Explorer Tool Now Has Data by Metropolitan Statistical Area for Oregon and U.S.

April 23, 2020

Job-to-Job Flows Explorer is a U.S. Census Bureau web-based analysis tool that enables comprehensive access to an innovative new set of statistics on worker reallocation in the United States. Workers often build their careers through job-hopping and these flows between jobs are a primary means by which workers move up their career ladders. Flows of workers across employers, industries, and labor markets are subsequently quite large – about half of hires and separations in 2000 were job-to-job flows. Yet until now, they also represented a gap in the set of available statistics on employment dynamics.

Job-to-Job Flows (J2J) statistics illuminate this enormous churn of workers between firms. Using longitudinal administrative data on workers' job histories, J2J traces worker earnings and movements through industries, geographic labor markets, and to/from employment.

Previously, we would have information about the number of jobs and detail about demographics or education level for county areas through the Local Employment Dynamics Quarterly Workforce Indications. Now we have additional insight into where those who change jobs are coming from or going to as they change employers. Here we’ll look at job flows both into and out of the Medford Metropolitan Statistical Area from 2016 through the first quarter of 2018. This information displays the churn in the labor market that is now available for MSAs.

Job-to-Job Flows for the Medford MSA by Education Level

When we think about the flow of workers to and from an area, we often hear discussions regarding losing our educated and trained workers to other areas. But what does the data show for a smaller metropolitan area in Oregon? Overall during the period from 2016 to the first quarter 2018, in the Medford MSA (Jackson County) there was a net increase in workers of all education levels.
A significant number of people both moved to Medford and moved from Medford – without a significant spell of non-employment – during that approximate two-year period. The largest net gain in workers were those with some college or an associate degree (+639). Those with high school education or equivalent (+572), and those with a bachelor’s degree or more (+521) also saw a net increase in the Medford MSA. Many who are less than 25 years old also move to and from jobs in different areas, but data by education level are only available for those age 25 and older. So when we think about the pipeline for workers into jobs in the local areas, this data shows workers are drawn from sources much broader that only local education institutions training new workers. They’re also coming from around the state and rest of the country as well. Detailed data include where these workers move from, what industries, and so much more. We have many who leave here with a bachelor’s degree or more level of education, but we still have a net gain of workers with higher levels of education during the past couple years. These data are available going back several years, but some data for all states or MSAs are not available for every year.

Job-to-Job (J2J) Flows by Age

Regional economies generally hope to attract younger residents who are in their “root setting” years. These early-career workers who move to an area can provide a younger population to teach in local schools, create demand for new housing as households form and grow, and help counter the overall aging trend that many areas face with a large share of the population in the baby-boomer years who might be leaving or have left the workforce due to retirement. Job-to-Job flow data can show what age groups workers who changed locations were in.
Employment by age job-to-job flow for Medford does show the greatest net positive increase in job flow of those who change locations are in the 25 to 34 age group, with a net positive gain of 968 workers. Across all but the youngest age group, Medford MSA saw a positive net job-to-job flow from 2016 through the first quarter of 2018.

It is relatively easy to peel back layers on increasingly detailed information about the workforce and job change. For example, data showing what industries had the largest job flow to Medford of workers with a bachelor’s degree shows that during that period, health care and social assistance had the largest job-to-job flow to Medford MSA. The average quarterly job flow to the Medford MSA health care and social assistance industry was 630 workers and of those 129 had a bachelor’s degree or greater level of education. Of all 772 workers with bachelor’s degrees who worked somewhere else and then worked in the Medford MSA during 2016 to first quarter 2018 period, 129 of those worked in the health care and social assistance industry.  Of those 129 workers, about 72 percent were female. Looking at what metropolitan areas most of these workers came from, Portland, Grants Pass, and Los Angeles were the top three metropolitan statistical areas where those workers changed jobs from.

Job-to-Job Flows Explorer Highlights 

Check out the J2J Explorer Tool, where it’s easy to toggle between industry and education level with visualizations that take advantage of this rich dataset. J2J Explorer unlocks these statistics through an intuitive dashboard interface. The application's interactive visualizations allow for the construction of tables and charts to compare, aggregate, and analyze earnings and flows by worker and firm characteristics. Potential analyses include identifying what industries are hiring manufacturing workers, what metro areas have the highest rate of worker separations leading to persistent non-employment, comparing earnings after job flows to earnings for job stayers, and a time series analysis on the impacts of educational attainment on earnings. The data exploration possibilities are endless.

Comprehensive Data Coverage – Access 59 different measures of worker reallocation, up to 72 quarters of data for some states, firm and worker characteristics, and tabulations at the state and metro area levels. The job-to-job data for states has been available for a few years, but the new addition for regional analysis is the MSA data that in now included, including information or all of Oregon’s MSA’s and the “non-metropolitan portion”.

Flexible Dashboard Interface – Explore worker earnings and flows between industries and geographies by building the exact table, map, line chart, or other chart required to analyze – and inspire subsequent – worker flows questions.

Interactive Visualizations and Table Exports – The six different visualization options provide multiple perspectives on worker flows between jobs or into/out of nonemployment.

Easy-To-Use Documentation – Online documentation, including FAQs and walkthroughs, is available through the LEHD website at lehd.ces.census.gov.