Each survey collects information about:

• Current and prior employment (since the date of last interview), including characteristics of the current or most recent employer and of any other employers for whom the respondent worked
• Military service

From the data collected in the Young Adult survey about employee jobs, freelance jobs, and military service, researchers can construct a longitudinal record for the respondents' employment history from the year they were first surveyed to their most recent interview date, except for those first interviewed in 1994, 1996, or 1998: from 1994 through 1998, the reference date for collecting job information was set to January 1 of the year preceding the fielding year. 

Since 2000, this longitudinal record has been maintained even for respondents who are not interviewed every survey round. Each year's questionnaire incorporates retrospective questions designed to recover information lost during previous survey years as completely as possible. For example, a respondent interviewed in 2000 and not interviewed again until 2006 will have a complete labor force history up through the 2006 interview, as employment information since 2000 will be recovered in 2006. Researchers should be alert to the possibility of gaps and discrepancies in some records over time due to inconsistencies in respondent reporting or interviewer error. 

Longitudinal work experience

This section discusses information on various aspects of the longitudinal work experience record available for each Young Adult respondent.

Number of employers

The most basic longitudinal information available for respondents is the total number of employers for whom a respondent worked during a given period and the total number of employers (part-time and full-time) ever reported by a respondent. It is possible to construct a fairly complete inventory of the number of jobs for all respondents from the age of 15 years and older (except for the earliest years of the survey, as discussed above).

"Employers" versus "jobs"

Unless explicitly noted, the Young Adult work data are employer-based. Therefore, any reference to "job" is a reference to a specific employer. Information about specific duties and positions or changes in duties or position is collected, with reference to a specific employer, only at the point of interview. We therefore caution researchers that counting changes in occupations cannot necessarily be equated with total job changes or employer changes. For example, it is possible for a respondent to hold more than one occupation with the same employer during the time between interviews, yet the only occupation specifically reported at the point of interview would be the current/most recent occupation. Likewise, a respondent may hold the same occupation through his or her tenure with several employers.

Part-time and short term employment information

Industry, occupation, and class of worker information is not collected for every part-time or short term employer who is not the primary employer. For jobs lasting less than 10 weeks or jobs where the respondent worked less than ten hours a week, respondents are only asked for employer name, start and stop dates, and hours worked.

Double-counting of employers

Users should be aware that a small degree of double-counting of employers may occur when data are collected. Up through 2008, employment information collected from the last interview was not carried forward to the next round. Beginning in 2010, the names and occupational descriptions for current employers at the most recent interview (limited initially to those from 2008 in 2010) have been carried forward, and YAs are asked a series of follow-up questions on these jobs.

Employer characteristic histories

It is possible to build a limited history of certain employer-based characteristics (earnings/hourly wages, occupation, and so forth). These histories will be limited in the sense that many of these characteristics are reported only at the date of each interview. When change occurs between interviews, in most instances the point of actual change cannot be precisely determined. 

Strictly speaking, it is possible that an occupational change from one interview year to the next could reflect only one of several during the period between interviews. Characteristics such as hourly wage may be of less concern in this regard, as some numeric progression or regression should be apparent. Even for these indicators, however, interim and temporary cutbacks in compensation in times of economic downturn may be missed. 

Job history rosters

To help researchers track YA employment history across rounds, a Job History Roster with unique job IDs has been created for each YA survey round from 1994 to 2020. Each job in a Job Roster has the following variables:

JOB-HISTORY_UID.## - The unique job IDs comprise the year the employer was first reported, followed by the next number in the sequence for that year. For example, if a Young Adult respondent is working for Employer X in 1994, Employer X would be assigned the ID 199401 and would have this ID number in all subsequent rounds the respondent works for Employer X.  If this respondent remains working there for a few rounds, but by 2002 is now working for Employer Y, Employer Y’s ID would be 200201.  If the respondent is also working for Employer Z in 2002, Employer Z’s ID will be 200202.  

JOB-HISTORY_CURRFLAG.## - This variable indicates whether or not the YA respondent is currently working for this employer at the date of the interview.

JOB-HISTORY_START-DATE.##~M, JOB-HISTORY_START-DATE.##~Y – The month and year that the YA respondent first reported starting to work for this employer.

JOB-HISTORY_STOP-DATE.##~M, JOB-HISTORY_STOP-DATE.##~Y – If this is not a current employer, these variables contain the month and year that the respondent reported they stopped working for this employer.  If this is a current employer, these variables contain the month and year of the interview date as a boundary for questions about this employer.

To mitigate the probability of double-counting employers, employer names and other reported information were compared across time, so that in the years where time gaps in reporting existed (1994 to 1998) and the years when no past information was carried forward (1994 to 2008), tenure at jobs can be determined.