Labor Areas Stage

A labor area is the geographic area from which an employer usually seeks, or reasonably could seek, workers for jobs in a given job group.  Labor areas are used for compiling occupational data from the U.S. Census.  Defining labor areas accurately can significantly enhance the accuracy of all utilization analyses.

Labor areas are broken up into two categories:

Local Labor Area - This is the recruitment area for locally recruited jobs, or the area that generates applicants for locally-recruited jobs.  You may create one local labor area for all job groups, or multiple local labor areas to be applied to different job groups where applicable.  Lower-paying jobs are commonly recruited more locally than higher paying jobs requiring more advanced knowledge, skills, education, or experience.  The local labor area is typically identified by using the employee or applicant zip codes.

Reasonable Labor Area - This is a geographic area that is larger than a local labor area, and represents a larger area from which applicants are derived or recruited.  It may include multiple counties, for example, or an entire state, multiple states, or the entire United States (National).

Creating/Modifying Labor Areas:

Zip Code Analysis (Recommended): The zip code analysis uses the zip codes of all employees, or all applicants, to determine what census locations are to be included in the labor area.  The census locations are automatically weighted based on the number of people (employees or applicants) that live in each census location.  Complete the following steps to create your local labor area(s) using zip codes:

1. Select Zip Code Analysis button under the Defined Labor Areas section.
2. Select if you wish to use employee or applicant zip codes under Analysis Type.
3. Use the Use All Available Data checkbox if you wish to use all data regardless of transaction dates, or enter the desired date range (typically the transaction dates).
4. Use the Run Analysis For dropdown to run the analysis for all job groups, or select specific groups if you wish to use different labor areas for certain job groups.
5. Select OK.

Manually: Labor areas can be created manually, and existing labor areas (including those created using the zip code analysis) can be modified manually.  Complete the following steps to manually create your labor areas:

1. Click the Create button under the Defined Labor Areas section.
2. Click the Add button to add a new row to the Areas Included table.
3. Use the Area Type dropdown to select the type of census area you wish to add (county, state, or CBSA [core based statistical area]).
4. Use the State dropdown to select the state in which the desired census area is located.
5. Use the location dropdown to select the specific-names census area to add (e.g., if the Area Type is city, the Location dropdown will list all cities within the selected state).
6. Enter the weight for this census area within the labor area.  The total percentage of all census areas within the labor area must equal 100.00%.
7. Click Save to save your changes, then click Close to return to the labor areas screen.  The new labor areas will appear in the Defined Labor Areas section.

Assign Labor Areas to Job Groups:

Once you have created the appropriate labor areas, they must be assigned to each job group.

NOTE: A labor area may be assigned to reasonable or local for a job group, not both for the same job group.

Assign Manually - Complete the following steps to manually assign labor areas:

1. Use the icons next to each job group in the Assigned Labor Areas to Job Groups section to display the Local and Reasonable area nodes for each job group.
2. Assign labor areas from the Defined Labor Areas section to the appropriate node for each job group by using the Add button in the Selected Area section, or by selecting and dragging the labor area to the desired node.

TIP: To apply the selected labor area to all Local or Reasonable nodes for all job groups, use the Local and Reasonable buttons in the Add All section.

3. To un-assign a labor area from a job group, use the Remove button in the Selected Area section, or drag and drop the area from the Assigned Labor Areas to Job Groups section to the Defined Labor Areas section.

Apply From - Labor areas can be assigned to this plan from another plan where labor areas have already been created using the Apply From button ( ) in the toolbar.  This option only works for job groups and labor areas that are the same in both plans.  If a job group exists in the current plan but not the plan you are applying from, that job group will have no labor areas assigned.  You can manually create and assign labor areas for such job groups after you have used the Apply From option.  Complete the following steps to apply labor areas from another plan:

1. Click the Apply From button ( ) in the toolbar.
2. Select which plan you wish to apply labor areas from.
3. Click OK.