The years 1995 through 2002 saw a gain in the proportion of Missourians 45 years old or older in the work force and the proportion of workers who were 65 years old or older increased to 3.0 percent, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report today. The analysis of Missouri’s older workers is based on a new Census Bureau program, Local Employment Dynamics (LED) <http://lehd.dsd.census.gov>.

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

     “States have had economic indicators for industries before, and they have had demographic characteristics of workers before,” said Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon. “What is unique about LED is that it shows how the work force changes each quarter within a state or substate area, in what industries the changes occur and the characteristics of workers involved in the changes. These indicators give new insight into each state’s economy and how fluid employment is in local areas.”

     Some highlights from the Missouri report:

• Missouri industries in which more than 1-in-5 workers were age 55 years old or older in 2002 included local and suburban transit and real estate. More than 5,000 people working in real estate were older workers.
• In 2002, workers 65 years old or older in Missouri were most likely to be employed in health services, business services and eating and drinking establishments.
• Health services was an industry with a low turnover rate for workers 55 years old or over in 2002, while business services showed a high turnover rate for this age group.
• Among industries that employed more than 500 people age 65 or over, the highest paying was legal services ($4,122 a month).
• The industry with the highest average monthly earnings in 2002 for workers 65 or older was security and commodity brokers ($6,430). But the number of such workers was only 388.

     The LED consists of individual partnerships between 29 states and the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau will release reports for its partner states on a variety of topics over the coming year.

     In addition, quarterly work force indicators such as job creation and new hires are currently available for the state of Missouri and several other partner states for selected years, sex, age groups and geographies at <http://lehd.dsd.census.gov/led/01/004/index.html>.

     Because the statistics come from a variety of sources, including state administrative records and basic demographic information, they are not directly comparable with statistics from household-based surveys such as the decennial census long form, the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey. Industries are organized under the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. The LED program soon will move from the SIC system to the North American Industry Classification System. As in all data estimation processes, the results are subject to errors, such as those arising from data processing or incomplete records. The Census Bureau uses a variety of procedures to minimize such errors or the impact of such errors.

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