By Joshua Long, Data Program Director
To look at workforce trends data over time, one need not look any further than to the Datascape. This data originates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s The Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program and its LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics data (LODES).
LEHD uses data from unemployment insurance filings for all 50 states, which each state shares with the federal government and LEHD. The data is made anonymous and then compiled to show how many workers there are per census block, where those workers live, as well as limited demographic information and broad salary ranges.
The data set is released annually, using data that is approximately two years old. The Downtown Detroit Datascape breaks down those data in the Metrics on Downtown Detroit (MoDD) tool, which can be found on the DDP website. Within MoDD, you can find numbers of Downtown workers, where Downtown workers are commuting from, and where there are residential concentrations of Metro area workers.
