The quarterly workforce indicators (QWI) provide local labor market data by industry, worker demographics, and employer characteristics such as age and size.
Unlike other statistics, QWI data links workers to their employers, offering job-level insights. This link allows the data to be broken down by worker age, sex, education, and race/ethnicity. As a result, you can analyze labor markets or industries by demographics, such as identifying industries with aging workforces.
The QWI also tracks worker flows, including hires, separations, turnover, and net employment growth.
Accessing the data
QWI tool overview
The data are available and can be selected by state, county, metro/micropolitan area and workforce investment area (WIA). An overview of the QWI tool (PDF, 532KB) and its workforce indicators, along with the QWI Explorer document (PDF highlighting this new, web-based analysis tool), will help in understanding how to make use of this data.
In the QWI Explorer tool, choices below 'filters/aggregations' allow you to select your sub-state geographic area preference by clicking on the 'none' link (default). Under geography type, select the area you want, and a dropdown box will appear allowing you to select a particular county, metro/micropolitan area or WIA. Help and documentation links are located at the upper right area of the QWI Explorer page.
OnTheMap overview
OnTheMap Version 6 (sixth generation) is a web-based mapping and reporting application that shows where workers are employed and where they live. It also provides companion reports on age, earnings, industry distributions, race, ethnicity, educational attainment and sex. You can find a quick description of this application in the OnTheMap one-pager (PDF, 164KB).
There are several data sources for the Longitudinal-Employer Household Dynamics Program (LEHD) data used in OnTheMap and other tools. The states agree to share unemployment insurance earnings data and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data with the Census Bureau.
The LEHD program combines these administrative data, additional administrative data and data from censuses and surveys. From these data, the program creates statistics on employment, earnings and job flows at detailed levels of geography and industry and for different demographic groups. In addition, the LEHD program uses these data to create partially synthetic data on workers' residential patterns. This data is updated annually.
Additional tools
The U.S. Census Bureau offers additional tools that use LEHD data.
- Learn more about U.S. Census Bureau LEHD data tools.
- View Washington's 2020 census state profile on the Census Bureau's website.