11 code 134 number establishments change check macro edit only
Number of Establishments Change Check - Code 134 - Macro Edit Only
This edit looks for macro cells that have an unusual change in unit count. In other words, it is looking for a significant number of establishments that are either starting up or going out of business during the same quarter. This could be a sign of general expansion or contraction of an industry, of miscoded NAICS values for multiple worksites of a family, the closure of a multi-unit employer, or several other conditions.
Although this information may be useful, it will often not be traceable to micro-level edit exceptions. If each new or discontinued establishment starts/finishes off with fewer than 100 employees (the BLS default for new/discontinued units), or shows a predecessor/successor relationship (one of these will be the case over 95% of the time), the appearance or disappearance of such an establishment is not noticed in any of the micro edits. It is often necessary to use the ES2D screen to display activated and inactivated units (using the CELL-CHG option for inter-quarter code or status changes) to decide what caused the Code 134 error condition.
The formulation for this edit is shown below:
As shown above, there are three possible values for the tolerance (Tol), selecting the largest of the three choices shown. If there are fewer than 20 establishments (or units) in each of the two quarters (current and prior, or the edited quarter and the quarter immediately preceding the edited quarter), then the last choice (four) will be the tolerance. If either one of the unit counts is greater than 16, then the higher unit count will be divided by four and used as the tolerance. However, this value is not rounded to the nearest integer. The fractional part is dropped off, so that the tolerance for macro cells up to and including 19 establishments will be four (4). For 20 to 23 establishments, the limit is five, and so forth.
Once the tolerance is computed, it can be used in comparison with the inter-quarter unit count change. The tolerance represents the largest allowed unit count change from one quarter to the next, which is limited to 25% of the larger unit count value. If the change in unit count exceeds the tolerance, the macro cell will be flagged with this condition. It will also allow any employment or wage edit exceptions for related micro records to be tied into this edit on the integrated edit report.
Related Links
