In 2002, about 32 percent of working Idahoans were age 45 and over, an increase from 25 percent in 1992, the U.S. Census Bureau said today. The analysis of Idaho’s older work force is based on the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) program <http://lehd.dsd.census.gov>.

     The report, A Profile of Older Workers in Idaho [PDF], highlights the age composition of the state’s work force, job gains and losses for older workers by industry, industries in which older workers are concentrated and their job stability and earnings.

     “With these new data we can see trends develop each quarter within a state or substate area, in what industries the changes occur and the characteristics of workers involved in the changes,” Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon said. “These indicators give new insight into Idaho’s economy and how fluid employment is in its communities.”

     Some highlights from the Idaho report:

• In 2002, industries in which more than 1-in-5 workers were 55 or older included local or suburban transit, motor freight transportation and real estate.
• Industries where workers 65 or older were most likely to be employed were business services, health services and social services.
• Legal services saw a low turnover rate for workers 55 or older, while agricultural production of crops, and eating and drinking establishments had high turnover rates.

     Among industries in 2002 that employed more than 500 people 65 or older, the highest-paying was health services, whose workers received average earnings of $2,094 per month.

     The LED program consists of individual partnerships between 31 states, the District of Columbia and the Census Bureau. Reports prepared jointly with the partner states on a variety of topics will be released over the upcoming months. The Department of Health and Human Services’ National Institute on Aging, a component of the National Institutes of Health, funded the reports on older workers.

In addition, quarterly work force indicators on such subjects as job creation and new hires are currently available for Idaho and several other partner states for selected years, age groups and geographic areas, as well as for men and women, at <http://lehd.dsd.census.gov>.

     Because the statistics come from a variety of sources including state administrative records, they are not directly comparable with statistics from household surveys such as the decennial census long form, the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey.

     Industries are organized by the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. The LED program will soon move from the SIC system to the North American Industry Classification System. As in all data-estimation processes, the results are subject to error arising from data processing or incomplete records. The Census Bureau uses a variety of procedures to minimize such errors.

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