Letters to the editor, July 1998

To the Editors:

 

I was pleased to see the clear explanation in the box entitled "Reconciling differences in employment estimates from the Current Population Survey (Household Survey) and the Current Employment Statistics Survey (Establishment Survey)" in the article by Randy E. Ilg and Angela Clinton in the February 1998 Monthly Labor Review. As someone who has to constantly repeat that litany, I am pleased to be able to refer skeptics to the box.

 

However, there is a serious omission from the box. From my standpoint, I am pleased to see that you recognized that commuters from Canada and Mexico are included in the Current Employment Statistics (CES) Survey but not in the Current Population Survey (CPS). I have done a survey of border crossers for the ports of entry in San Diego and Imperial Counties and know there are commuters who reside in California (United States) and work in Baja California (Mexico). For the San Diego/Tijuana ports of entry, we found approximately 35,000 commuters who legally work in California and 10,000 commuters to Baja California in 1992. While your box takes the former into account, I will still have to explain that the commuters from California to Baja California are included in the CPS but not in the CES.

 

Sincerely,

Millicent Cox, Ph.D

San Diego, California

 

 

Mr. Ilg and Ms. Clinton reply:

 

Taking into account the persons who live in the United States (and thus represented in the Current Population Survey) but who work in a neighboring country (and thus in jobs that are not counted in the Current Employment Statistics Survey) does complete the logic of the reconciliation exercise. The number of people involved may be considerably smaller than your border crossing data suggest, however. According to the 1990 Census data on the journey to work, 7,247 U.S. residents worked in Mexico for the bulk of the 1990 census reference week. Of these, more than half were from Texas, a quarter were from California, and 7.1 percent were from Arizona. An additional 4,668 American residents were working in Canada.

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