Virginia's Career and Workforce Labor Market Information

Virginia Works has provided several extensions to the official OEWS data series (which have been developed in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics). These additional products have not been validated by BLS and are not, therefore, official BLS data series. Virginia Works feels, however, that these data provide additional information that is useful to data users. Files detailing these areas can be found in the download center (https://virginiaworks.com/download-center).

Two of these additional products are the “entrywg” and “experience” fields. Virginia Works has used the Local Employment and Wage Information System (LEWIS) to calculate entry-level wage rates as the mean of the first (bottom) third of the wage distribution, and experienced-level wage rates as the mean of the top two-thirds of the wage distribution.  Data on experience level was not collected as part of the OEWS Survey, and the data contained in this report have not been validated by BLS and are not, therefore, official BLS data series.

Other products provided by Virginia Works which are not official BLS data series include OEWS estimates for Local Workforce Development Areas (LWDAs), Planning Regions, and Virginia Community College Regions. These sub-state employment and wage estimates have been produced using the Local Employment and Wage Information System (LEWIS) and have not been validated by BLS.

Please note that for statewide estimates, employment levels below 100 have been excluded. For sub-state estimates, employment levels below 30 have been excluded.

More technical information may be found at this link: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_tec.htm