Web Collection for the Covered Employment and Wages (cew) Program

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Covered Employment and Wages Program is developing a web-based collection program to address the data collection needs of its Annual Refiling Survey (ARS) and Multiple Worksite Report (MWR). The purpose of the ARS is to review and update the classification codes assigned to the 8 million worksites on this database. Approximately 1/3 of these worksites are reviewed each year. The purpose of the MWR is to disaggregate the employment and wages collected from tax reports (statewide) to the worksite level to meet the industrial and geographical needs of the program. Approximately 120,000 legal entities provide these data for 1.2 million worksites each quarter. This paper focuses on the different approaches that will be used to design and implement these web based collection systems. Differences in the collection periodicity, employer contacts, survey content, employer size (number of worksites), solicitation procedures, testing environment, and other relevant issues will be used to determine the best approach for both surveys. This cost/benefit analysis will help determine which employers within each survey are best suited for web-based collection.