Idaho’s Labor Market Information website (www.lmi.idaho.gov) has enjoyed a refresh that coincided with migration of its data to a new platform — WordPress.
Idaho Labor Market Information includes analysis and data on wages, jobs and the economy. It helps businesses recruit and retain a qualified workforce and make competitive business decisions for local and national wages. Job seekers, public officials, educators and students use labor market information to make career and education plans, and strategic business and policy decisions.
The new landing page directs users to the data. Other highlights on the new landing page include:
- A new interactive map. The map of Idaho’s 44 counties allows users to click on a specific county and view the levels of civilian labor force and unemployed via a chart.
- The most current Idaho unemployment rate and unemployed resident count are prominently displayed on blue tiles.
- Current news releases and articles on topics across the state are provided on a slider or viewing screen that moves through the various loaded reports.
Interactive map on new LMI website
A goal for the redesign was to reduce the number of overlays or clicks required to find data or access tables, graphs and other visualization tools. The landing page allows you to choose your identity or role — a job seeker or business/researcher — which leads to more personally curated data and information.
Depending on the browser used, a menu across the top of the web page – or a dropdown from the three horizontal lines at the top right of the web page (sometimes called the hamburger button) – quickly takes the user to specific information.
LMI home page menu bar samples
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Those wishing to navigate to a specific data set more efficiently can type in the website address (URL) in the address bar on the webpage, followed by the data or tool, enclosed by backslashes /. For example, to access the Occupational Employment & Wage Survey — its acronym is OEWS — you would type the following address for a direct connection to that page:
This shortcut saves time and clicks. The OEWS page is one of the most frequently viewed on the LMI website. It is a top source of information used by employers and job seekers to negotiate wages when hiring or accepting employment. It is also helpful for employers establishing a new firm or expanding a business because the OEWS data includes the concentration of skilled workforce in areas throughout the state.
Knowing the occupations in a geographic area makes it easier for a business to determine whether additional on-the-job training or working with a community college to train new workers is worth pursuing.
Idaho’s wage data is published for all six Idaho regions, the metropolitan statistical areas and the non-metro areas throughout the state. Survey responses from employers are voluntary but critical for providing good data for decision making by both businesses and job seekers.
The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) is another source of valuable data. It is the gold standard for tracking job levels, job growth and total wages for an industry. The data is acquired from administrative records that accompany employers’ unemployment insurance payments.
Other data products such as projections — both industry and occupational — have a page on the LMI website with dashboards for doing custom searches on the data. The most recent long-term projections cover 2020-2030. It is updated every two years, with the next rendition expected for release in 2024.
These projections give job seekers and people starting businesses an idea of what will be needed in the workforce to backfill retirements and augment occupations or industries due to population growth or decline.
The Census page is another section of the LMI website that compiles and updates Idaho statistical data for use by grant writers, business decision-makers and researchers. It can save time and frustration as the U.S. Census updates and makes changes to its tools frequently.
The Idaho Department of Labor represents Idaho as the designated state data center for the Census Bureau and endeavors to stay on top of the latest data and tools on its site.
The Census page provides the following:
- OnTheMap, an online tool to review your city or county’s commuting patterns.
- An explorer tool for Quarterly Workforce Indicators, a U.S. Census product that breaks out workforce characteristics by industry, geography, gender, age, race, ethnicity and educational attainment.
- A data series spreadsheet for county comparisons of median household income, along with percentages and levels of poverty for:
- Idaho’s statewide population
- School age children
- People 18 years and under
The regional information dashboard summarizes pertinent data about Idaho overall, all six regions, 44 counties and the Boise metropolitan statistical area. The data available includes population, civilian labor force, income, industry employment and wages, top employers, labor commuting patterns and more.
After taking a tour of https://lmi.idaho.gov, feel free to contact your regional labor economist with questions, input or if you need more information. Contact information is available on the website’s regional page at lmi.idaho.gov/regional-info/.
Jan.Roeser@labor.idaho.gov, regional economist
Idaho Department of Labor
(208) 735-2500 ext. 3639
This Idaho Department of Labor project is 100% funded by USDOL as part of $695,785 in Workforce Information Grant funds from the Employment and Training Administration.