Businesses use the employment data to guide in plant location and sales program decisions.
Researchers use the information as an economic indicator.
In this program, a sample of 20,000 employers in New York State voluntarily submit monthly information on employment, payroll and hours worked. Data from individual firms are grouped by industry and used as a sample for estimating industrywide statistics. Employment estimates for a given month are first made public about three weeks after the end of that month. These estimates are preliminary and may be changed when the following month's data is released. Since proprietors, the self-employed and unpaid family workers are not paid workers, they are not counted as employed.