Business employment dynamics by wage class

Currently available data on gross job gains and losses do not capture the wage component of employment dynamics. This article partly fills this gap by examining the distribution of job gains and losses among establishments that pay high, medium, and low wages. Statistics on gross job gains and losses, which show the dynamics of job creation and destruction, are now often used by economists and policymakers in understanding the labor market. Available longitudinal microrecord data on employers and employees have allowed researchers to observe, in detail, how employment growth is generated by a continuous stream of job gains and losses across all industries, geographies, and firms of different sizes and ages. Since its first publication in 2003, the Business Employment Dynamics (BED) program at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has expanded greatly, publishing valuable data series in response to policy and research needs for data on employment growth and labor turnover.