Local Area Unemployment Statistics.
Unemployment:
Unemployment:
Research and Analysis Section, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Virgin Islands Department of Labor.
The series covers the whole country with three employment offices throughout the territory. The minimum age limit is 16 years and the maximum is 65 years. All employee groups are covered. More detailed information by district is also available monthly for the following categories of unemployed persons: the experienced unemployed, new entrants and re-entrants to the workforce.
The series is monthly and started in January 1978.
Unemployment: Total unemployment for the reference week is the aggregate of estimates for each of four categories: persons previously employed in industries covered by unemployment insurance laws who have filed for unemployment insurance benefits; persons covered who did not file for benefits; persons previously employed in industries not covered by unemployment insurance laws; and persons who are entering the labour force for the first time or re-entering after a period of separation. All persons, including students, seeking temporary work or part-time work of at least one hour per week, as well as employable disabled persons or persons receiving invalidity benefits are included in the series. Persons on temporary or indefinite lay-off without pay and those responsible for the loss of their last job are included as well.
Excluded from the unemployment series are retirement or other pensioners, persons on strike and persons with any form of minimal employment seeking other work.
Registration: Registration is the voluntary filing as unemployed at an unemployment insurance office to claim benefits. Personal visits once a week are required to maintain one's registration. Persons not filing for benefits, i.e. who do not register, are accounted for by estimation.
Deletion from the register: Persons are deleted from the register and thus automatically from the unemployment statistics for the following reasons: rejection of the first job offer; temporary inability to work due to illness, accident and holidays; refusal to fulfil register maintenance requirements; and fraud. Participation in government training schemes or job-creation schemes does not lead to deletion from the register. Refusal to participate in these schemes, however, leads to exclusion from the register.
The reference period is the week containing the 12th day of each month. Preliminary data are compiled six weeks after the reference week. Final compilation of the statistics takes place four to five weeks after the preliminary data are available.
Data collected from the Virgin Islands Unemployment Insurance Agency, ratios of covered unemployment to non-covered employment and factors reflecting national historical relationships are used to develop estimates for the four categories of unemployment. Total unemployment estimates are calculated by summing unemployed entrants (new entrants and re-entrants) and the experienced unemployed. Labour force data are revised annually to reflect the Bureau of Labor Statistics 790 annual benchmarking process and to utilise more current ratios and relationships. Virgin Islands data are not adjusted to an independent estimate (such as provided on the United States of America mainland by the Current Population Survey).
Unemployment rates are computed and published monthly with the monthly count of total unemployment. The unemployment rate is computed as the sum of the unemployment estimate for each month, divided by the labour force estimate for that month.
Not available.
Virgin Islands Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Research and Analysis Section: "Virgin Islands Labor Market Review" (monthly) (St. Thomas, 1988). Each issue contains the same month's data.
idem: "Virgin Islands Labor Market Review: an Annual Planning Labor Market Information Report" (ibid., 1987). Each year's issue refers to monthly and annual averages from the preceding two years.
No methodological publications have been issued.