10 accounts prior quarter data
Accounts with Prior Quarter Data
Once it has been established that the account was active in the prior quarter, the next step is to check the previous year’s employment data. Specifically, the third month of last year’s prior quarter, and the first two months of last year’s same quarter are checked for zero values. If all of the three prior year employment months are positive, the standard EMP3 estimation method is used. Although this is probably the most commonly utilized employment estimation method, it is also the most involved. Each missing month must be examined uniquely. Month 1 (January, April, July, or October) is estimated from the equations:
IncMax and DecMax are the greatest increase and decrease allowed by the PK004 and PK003 parameters of the Lookup File. Their derivation was described earlier. The pq subscript specifies the prior quarter’s value, whereas the py and pypq values represent the prior-year same-quarter and prior-year prior-quarter values, respectively. This particular set of equations is called into play only when the first month’s employment value is missing, and under the liability and termination date restrictions outlined under the Preliminary Notes sub-section. A reported or previously estimated field will be ignored in the estimation attempt.
The equations for the second month (February, May, August, or November) of the quarter are listed below.
Once again the IncMax, DecMax, and py values are as they have been previously described. A reported or estimated value already present in the third month employment will preclude this month from being estimated by these equations. A zero estimate will also override the computed estimate if the account is found to be inactive during the third month of the quarter (reference the Preliminary Notes sub-section for more information). After the appropriate months have received estimates for employment via this EMP3 code method, the estimation processing is complete, wrapped up by the post-processing routine.
The remaining single accounts that require employment estimation are those that had been active in the prior quarter, but had at least one zero value in the previous year’s monthly employment fields. This means the employment cannot be estimated via the same month-to-month change values experienced in the previous year, since at least one of the applied ratios will have a zero division overflow. The next best alternative is to use prior quarter data instead of the prior year’s data. If the account is in a generally stable industry (i.e., seasonal fluctuation in employment is minimal), this method is usually satisfactory.
The first method is to utilize the most recent month’s employment, namely the third month of the prior quarter, for application to the processed quarter. If this employment field is non-zero, the EMP4 employment estimate is formed the formulae listed below:
MonX denotes any month in the quarter with missing data (if the account is active during that month (noted in the Single-Account Employment Estimates sub-section)), pq represents prior quarter data, DecMax and IncMax form boundaries for the monthly employment rate of change (shown at the bottom of the Single Account Total Wage Estimates sub-section), and Prorate is a proration factor for the fraction of the quarter during which the account is in active status. If the account is inactive during any of the missing months (determined by the liability and termination month counts (referenced in the Preliminary Notes sub-section)), the employment estimate is set to zero for that month. If either the processed quarter or the prior quarter shows zero total wages, the wage ratio is defaulted to unity (1.00).
Any months missing employment will receive the value calculated from the equation on the previous page, except as noted in the contingencies of the Preliminary Notes. Once this is done, the estimation process wraps up with the post-processing routine.
The remnant of single and master accounts that require estimates are those that were active in the previous quarter but had zero employment in the third month of that quarter. The next attempt for estimation uses the prior quarter’s AME (average monthly employment), if the value is not zero. The formulation for this estimate, which uses code EMP5, is:
MonX represents any missing employment month, pq represents prior quarter data, DecMax and IncMax bound the change in employment from the prior quarter’s AME value to the processed quarter’s employment, and Prorate identifies the proration factor (the fraction of the quarter for which the account is active). If the Prorate factor is zero, this method is still used, but only to set zero values in any missing employment months. This is due to the fact that the account is not active for enough of the quarter to receive even one month’s estimated employment. Any months of missing employment will then receive this computed value, except when the account is found to be inactive during that month (see the Preliminary Notes sub-section for details). Completion of the estimation process follows with the standard post-processing procedures.
For the remaining type of account — possessing a zero AME in the prior quarter - the only remaining opportunity for an employment estimate lies in the macro data. The account’s county, ownership, and NAICS code are used to read the appropriate Macro File record, specifically for one year before the processed quarter. If this particular macro record does not exist, the EMPC estimation failure code results (“estimation not possible since Macro record is non-existent”). If the macro record is found, the employment and total wage fields are inspected. Should either the employment or wage aggregate be zero, no estimate is possible, producing the EMPD estimation failure code instead (“not estimated due to insufficient macro data”). Either failure code will also set the estimation flag of the account to “F”, preventing needless reprocessing of the estimation attempt until something in the record is changed.
When non-zero prior year employment and wage data are available from the macro record, a successful estimate is produced, using the EMP6 estimation technique, applicable to any missing employment months during which the account is active (see the Preliminary Notes sub-section for qualifiers). This method is formulated as shown below:
MonX represents any missing month of employment, Mac identifies macro-level data, py specifies the prior year’s same quarter data, and Prorate denotes the quarter proration factor (the fraction of the quarter for which the account is active). Once these values are computed, the estimation process is complete, except for clean-up processing.
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