by Oriane Casale
February 2014
The mission of the Labor Market Information (LMI) Office of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) is to collect and deliver high quality data about the state's economy. Our work supports Minnesota's businesses, its workforce and economic development system, and the workers of today and tomorrow. We gather, analyze, and disseminate economic data on Minnesota's business community, workforce, and job market. We also provide key economic indicators, employment projections, and regional and statewide industry and workforce analysis along with information aimed at helping individuals make informed career decisions. We believe that access to high quality, up-to-date labor market information has been instrumental in making Minnesota one of the strongest job markets in America and that it will continue to play an important role in our economic future.
So that we may continually improve the information and services we provide, we regularly summarize related information including customer type, information requested, and satisfaction level. We share this information with you in the hopes that it may be as helpful for you to see how others are using our data or would like to use our data as it is for us in guiding how we can best supply it.
The information contained in the summary comes from several sources:
Information from our 2013 summary is included in this article as well as updates on projects we have undertaken and services we have improved during the past year.
The LMI Office offers a number of delivery methods for the data and information we provide. These methods include, but are not limited to:
Table 1 provides a snapshot of customer contacts we made over the past year. The majority of LMI customers accessed information from our website, but a significant minority received LMI services through other means.
| LMI Customers by Information Delivery Method, 2013 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type of Contact | Contacts | Number of Customers |
| Website – December 2013 only | 20,847 page views | 16,152 unique page views |
| Telephone, email, mail requests | 2,078 Contacts | 2,078 Contacts |
| Presentations and trainings | 169 presentations/trainings | 4,561 audience members |
| Publications subscribers | 4,280 publications sent | 1,070 subscribers |
| Source: DEED LMI Office, various sources | ||
In addition to counting the number of contacts we have with customers throughout the year, we also keep an eye on the type of organizations the users of our data represent. This allows us to shape our information production better for our customers. In 2013 our top customer groups were WorkForce Center staff, the media, and private businesses. Other groups included non-profits, schools, colleges and universities, Workforce Service Area staff, and council members and economic developers.
The customer satisfaction findings in the tables are from the survey period from April 2012 to March 2013. They represent two user groups: employers who posted job orders and employers who were visited by DEED business service representatives.
The customer satisfaction results presented in Table 2 are good overall but certainly leave room for improvement.
| Customer Satisfaction | ||
|---|---|---|
| Results from the DEED-Wide Customer Satisfaction Survey: April 2012 through March 2013 Survey Period | Employers that posted job orders | Employers visited by Business Services |
| Minnesota Customer Satisfaction Index, 0 to 100 scale | 76.5 | 79.7 |
| Question | Response* | Response* |
| Did you get this information by telephone or email, through the internet, through a publication, or by another method? | 3% Phone
3% Email 81% Internet 5% Publication 8% Other |
0% Phone
16% Email 68% Internet 2% Publication 14% Other |
| How satisfied are you with the time it took us to respond to your telephone call or email? Are you: very satisfied, satisfied, dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied? | 100% Very Satisfied
0% Satisfied |
86% Very Satisfied
14% Satisfied 0% Dissatisfied 0% Very Dissatisfied |
| How easy was it to find the labor market information you needed? Was it: very easy, somewhat easy, somewhat difficult, or very difficult? | 38% Very Easy
41% Somewhat Easy 16% Somewhat Difficult 5% Very Difficult |
44% Very Easy
50% Somewhat Easy 6% Somewhat Difficult 0% Very Difficult |
| How satisfied are you that the information was presented in a clear and understandable manner? Are you: very satisfied, satisfied, dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied? | 42% Very Satisfied
53% Satisfied 3% Dissatisfied 3% Very Dissatisfied |
43% Very Satisfied
55% Satisfied 3% Dissatisfied 0% Very Dissatisfied |
| How well did the information meet your needs? Very well, well, not very well, or not at all? | 37%Very Well
58% Well 5% Not Very Well 0% Not At All |
33% Very Well
60% Well 8% Not Very Well 0% Not at all |
| *The most frequent response (mode) is in italic. | ||
Based on these findings and our overall impressions from talking with customers, the biggest area of concern is website navigation: Of the group that was most likely to use the internet to access LMI, employers who were surveyed because they placed a job order in the MinnesotaWorks.net job bank, 22 percent had difficulty finding what they were looking for. This group was by far most likely to attempt to access LMI on the internet. There are two things to know about this: first these findings reflect only on the old DEED website, which was replaced in November 2013. Second, as discussed in the next section, improving our section of the new DEED website is at the top of our list for 2014.
There is also room to improve the way we present our information in terms of understandability and clarity. This is an ongoing effort, and we will add usability testing to our toolkit in 2014. We hope that this will further improve the overall understandability and clarity of our presentation.
As we know from previous years, wages and salaries are the most heavily demanded information that we produce (Table 3). The greatest share of employer customers uses our information for wage and salary decision and business planning (Table 4).
| Types of labor market information received | ||
|---|---|---|
| Category | Employers - Business Services | Employers - Job Orders* |
| Wages, Salary, Earnings, Pay | 49% | 77% |
| Employee Benefits | 7% | 0% |
| Unemployment Rate Information | 14% | 21% |
| Occupational Staffing Patterns | 4% | 0% |
| Affirmative Action | 4% | 3% |
| Job Vacancy Statistics/Market Conditions | 9% | 0% |
| Employment Projections/Future Outlook | 7% | 0% |
| Other | 6% | 0% |
Table 4
| How do customers use the information? | ||
|---|---|---|
| Category | Employers - Business Services | Employers - Job Orders |
| Worker Availability | 13% | 7% |
| Wage and Salary Decisions | 42% | 48% |
| Business Planning | 17% | 19% |
| Research/Report Preparation | 16% | 17% |
| Other | 13% | 9% |
We always welcome comments and feedback on our products and services. You can contact us at DEED.lmi@state.mn.us or telephone us at our helpline: 651-259-7384.
