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Washington forum spotlights rollout of occupational data in UI wage records and national momentum
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Summary
State officials, researchers and labor leaders described Washington's multi-year effort to add occupation fields to unemployment insurance wage records (HB 2308), ESD's implementation progress, employer adoption rates and how the data will be used for career tools, program evaluation and federal compliance.
April Sims, president of the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO, opened a virtual forum on Washington's new occupational data by framing the change as long-sought labor policy: a way to make workforce and education systems more accountable to the people they serve.
Chelsea Mason Placzek, one of the event organizers and a workforce development director at the labor council, described why the amendment to state wage records matters: UI wage records already cover most workers; adding occupation (job title or a standard occupational classification code) lets agencies and researchers match education and training to real employment outcomes.
Sen. Vandana Slatter, the bill's sponsor, said HB 2308 (2020) added roughly 800 occupational fields to Washington's unemployment insurance reporting and that a later update, HB 1684 (2023), allowed federally recognized tribes to opt into reporting. "This was years of partnership with labor, business, agencies and researchers," she said, calling the profession-level detail "foundational" for mapping how certificates and degrees lead to jobs.
Gustavo Aviles, director of Labor Market Information and Research at the Employment Security Department (ESD), described the department's multi-year implementation project. ESD piloted the change in late 2021, began employer outreach in 2022, updated IT systems and issued guidance and penalties for noncompliance. By June 2024, Aviles said, about 73% of employers were reporting occupational data, accounting for 81% of Washington wage records; later reporting reached coverage that ESD described as roughly 95% of wage records. ESD has created an occupational-information team to monitor quality, flag invalid reports and build a wage-records occupational employment and wage statistics product.
"Accurate occupational information is important," Aviles said. "If this information is going to be used for training outcomes, economic development and program evaluation, we want to make sure the data that employers report is of good quality."
ESD Commissioner Cammie Feek and Maddie Thompson, acting executive director of the Washington State Workforce Board, praised the collaborative approach and said state agencies will use the data for career tools and policy planning. Dave Wallace, research director at the workforce board, showed planned Career Bridge visualizations that will report occupation-level wages, part-time and full-time distinctions, and occupational transitions for program completers.
Speakers from labor, industry and philanthropy framed the state's law as part of a national trend. John Furrer of Strata Education Foundation and other panelists said roughly a dozen states have implemented or committed to similar occupational collections; several more have pending legislation. Panelists named federal policy drivers such as Workforce Pell and Medicaid work-verification requirements as additional pressure points that make administrative occupational data valuable.
Researchers described immediate uses. Annalise Mint Sherman (ESD) showed a clean-energy staffing example that used reported job titles and occupational codes to distinguish mechanics working in aerospace from mechanics working in other industries. Michael Schultz (UW Evans School) said researchers are releasing briefs showing first-year occupational outcomes for postsecondary completers and that the data enables analysis of career continuity, occupational demand and local impacts.
Panelists acknowledged persistent challenges: employers' concerns about reporting burden; the need for automated reporting standards and APIs to reduce friction; privacy protections and governance for data sharing; and the requirement that states invest time and staff to validate and maintain data quality. Several speakers said early practical wins'useful public dashboards, research briefs and employer-engagement successes'are critical to sustaining participation.
Organizers said data access is typically governed by data-sharing agreements. ESD and partner agencies plan deidentified public reports and controlled research access, and they flagged a November legislative report on implementation and future uses.
The forum closed with organizers promising follow-up resources and continuing dialogue. Speakers emphasized that, with occupational data in place, policy- and program-level questions'from student counseling to workforce program evaluation and AI impact assessment'can be addressed more precisely than before.
