Colorado Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) Program
What is the MLS program?
The MLS program is a federal-state cooperative program funded and administered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and operated by the Labor Market Information Unit within the Colorado Department of Labor. The purpose of the program is to identify significant layoff activity by Colorado firms by tracking the weekly number of persons filing for initial unemployment claims and matching them against their last employer.
A mass layoff event is identified when the number of persons filing a first time claim for unemployment benefits against a given employer reaches 50 within any consecutive five-week period. For smaller firms, a layoff event is considered to occur when the initial claims count is equal to 75 percent of the firm's employment so long as the firm employment is at least 20. Once a firm has been identified as having a mass layoff event, unemployment claims against that employer are collected for the following eight-week period and considered part of the same layoff event.
Reasonable efforts are made to contact any firm identified as having experienced a mass layoff event in order to confirm that such a layoff has indeed taken place as well as the reason for the staffing cutback. Additionally, employers are asked to provide the total number of workers to be separated as part of the layoff event.
Does information collected under the MLS program remain confidential?
All data related to specific employers and individual unemployment insurance claimants is kept confidential. In an effort to maintain strict confidentiality, information collected as part of the MLS program will be released quarterly and aggregated to the State level.
What types of information will be made available?
Three sets of data tables will be released quarterly. The first table will identify the number of layoff events by reason (e.g., plant closure, business re-organization, or seasonal business slowdown). The second table will break out layoff activity by major industry group. The final table will provide demographic information on those workers who have lost their jobs as part of these layoffs.
What are the limitations of MLS data?
Data collected from the Mass Layoff Statistics program are only a subset of all layoff activity. Many layoffs fail to meet the qualifying criteria and thus will not be identified as an MLS event. For instance, the number of separated workers may exceed fifty but take place over a period longer than five-weeks and therefore not qualify as a layoff event under the MLS program definition. It is important to note that for a variety of reasons, many workers do not file for unemployment insurance benefits after separation from employment. Because an MLS event triggers on only by having a qualifying number of first-time filers for unemployment benefits within a given time period, large layoffs accompanied by low levels of unemployment insurance activity may not be identified as a mass layoff events.
How does MLS data relate to other data series?
It is not yet clear what the relationship is between mass layoff data and other types of major economic series such as unemployment claims data, jobless rates, and number of jobs for workers covered under unemployment insurance. These data all differ in terms of estimating methodologies, use, and behavioral characteristics. Over time, it is hoped that MLS data will contribute to a better understanding of the Colorado economy by allowing some inferences to be made about those firms and workers affected by large layoff experiences.