Industry

EmployStats economist Dr. Roberto Cavazos finds that economic loss from pay-per-click (PPC) is on the rise as fraudulent activity risks have increased as many large corporations use this platform. According to Dr. Cavazos, approximately $144 Billion is spent on paid and social search globally. However, according to empirical-based research, 14% of PPC was fraudulent making the economic loss to $23.7 Billion by the end of 2020.

What exactly is PPC fraud? According to bigcommercec.com, PPC fraud can be defined as individuals, computer programs, or generated scripts exploiting online advertisers by repeatedly clicking on a PPC advertisement to generate fraudulent charges. Dr. Cavazos stated there are several techniques used to perform these acts including competitor clicks, clicks by automated clicking tools, and robots or other deceptive software. To counteract these invalid clicks, Google is taking a proactive approach by automatically filtering any click that is considered invalid, however many clients find this safeguard to be a lot more complicated than beneficial.

Dr. Cavazos reported the economic loss that has amounted from PPC globally has made a substantial dent in the market. The total PPC fraud loss for the U.S. in 2019 was $7,700,000,000 and $9,060,800,000 in 2020. By the end of 2020, the expected loss for the largest eCommerce sector was $3.8 Billion on PPC campaigns. This was based on the 17% fraudulent clicks that were found across multiple eCommerce campaigns. Dr. Cavazos shared even though global web sales amounted to an astounding $3.4 trillion in 2019, the projected loss from PPC fraud is still a sizeable amount. Despite the global loss, paid search remains the most-used digital advertising format bringing in 47% of total digital revenues.

The rise of PPC platform spending has opened a new route for commitment of fraudulent activity. Each platform experiences their own issues with fraudulent activity making it difficult to recognize. Ending PPC fraud has become a top priority when it comes to enhancing and augmenting future campaigns. While PPC has been a successful marketing tactic, it poses risks for fraudulent behavior requiring an understanding of the consequence of the use of PPC and steps to be taken to minimize those risks. Dr. Cavazos believes these losses are borne by businesses making the smaller ones most vulnerable to suffering PPC fraud.

The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), provides employment and wage information by occupation and geographic location. Hourly and annual mean and median wages are available for more than 800 different occupations at the national, regional, state, and MSA level.

According to the latest OES news release, the healthcare industry employed 12 million people in May 2015, which represents nearly 9% of the nation’s total employment. Registered nurses (2.7 million), nursing assistants (1.4 million), and home health aides (820,630) were the largest healthcare occupations.

For more information, please refer to www.bls.gov/oes

 

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey  (JOLTS) is a monthly survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. JOLTS collects data on total employment, the number of job openings, the number of hires, and the number of separations including quits and layoffs. JOLTS can be used to measure the growth of a particular industry and to better understand labor-market opportunities.

According to the latest release on April 5th, 2016, job hires in the United States increased to 5.4 million in February 2016, while during this same period separations made little change at 5.1 million.

For more information on the JOLTS, please refer to www.bls.gov/jlt

 

The number of job openings in Texas for “petroleum engineers” and “geological and petroleum technicians” decreased from 635 in August 2015 to 653 in September 2015, while the searcher-to-job opening ratio decreased from 1.23 to 0.96 in the same span.

 

 

The number of job openings in Texas for “derrick operators” and “roustabouts” increased from 171 in August 2015 to 173 in September 2015, while the searcher-to-job opening ratio increased from 5.96 to 6.50 in the same span.

 

Source: BLS

Image source: http://wonderfulengineering.com/what-is-petroleum-engineering/

California experienced an increase of 198 innovation job openings from August 2015 to September 2015, an increase of 0.72%. Texas experienced an increase of 96 innovation job openings from August 2015 to September 2015, an increase of 0.65%.

 

State	Total Openings	Monthly Change	Yearly Change
CA	27,692	0.72%	7.85%
TX	14,906	0.65%	9.86%

Innovation jobs definition: http://www.employstats.com/blog/2014/09/26/1233/

Source: BLS

Image source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2013/09/23/symposium-innovation-ecosystems-jobs-wea.html

Crude oil prices decreased from $59.48 per barrel in June 2015 to $47.11 per barrel in July 2015. Natural gas prices also decreased from $2.80 per million BTU in June 2015 to $2.76 per million BTU in July 2015.

Texas crude oil production for July 2015 was 80,379 barrels, up from 79,556 barrels reported in June 2015. Texas natural gas production was 682,723 Mcf (thousand cubic feet) of gas in July 2015, up from the June 2015 natural gas production total of 671,691 Mcf.

Source: EIA, Texas RRC

In this post, we look at the weekly overtime (OT) hours typically worked by registered nurses who work in hospitals. Many of the employees that work in these jobs are not exempt from FLSA overtime pay and earn 1.5 times pay for hours worked over 40 in a given week. The tabulations below are based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) survey data. The BLS job title groups are insightful, generally containing more specific job titles with similar knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA), but can be more broad than a particular company’s job title listing. Also, some companies may have the job title listed here as exempt from FLSA or state OT due to their specific job assignments. The BLS does not make a distinction as to if the job title is exempt or non-exempt from OT.

Occupational Group Title	Percent of OT Workers	Average Hours of OT	1 out of every 4 (25%) OT workers works at least:
Registered Nurses in Hospitals	15.44%	10.29 hours	52 hours

U.S. BLS data indicates that approximately 15.44% of registered nurses in hospitals work overtime hours in a given week.  On average, these workers that have FLSA overtime work approximately 10.29 hours a week in OT. The average regular or straight time pay rate of these workers in the U.S. is approximately $26.15 an hour.  The average FLSA OT rate, not including supplemental pay such as non-discretionary bonus pay, is $39.22 an hour.

Source: BLS (CPS March)

The health care and social assistance industry gained 9,200 jobs from August 2015 to September 2015. Compared to September 2014, the cumulative number of jobs added in this industry is 67,000, an annual increase of 5.0%.

Source: http://www.tracer2.com/admin/uploadedPublications/2138_TLMR-Current_Edition.pdf

Image source: http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2012/01/06/health-care-sector-adds-jobs-as-overall-employment-picture-looks-healthier/

The oil and gas extraction industry in Texas lost 900 jobs from August 2015 to September 2015. Compared to September 2014, the cumulative number of jobs lost in this industry is 1,800, a decrease of 1.7%.

Source: http://www.tracer2.com/admin/uploadedPublications/2138_TLMR-Current_Edition.pdf

Image Source: http://www.eliteexploration.com/texas-oil-gas-companies/

In this post, we look at the weekly overtime (OT) hours typically worked by those who work as police officers. Many of the employees that work in these jobs are not exempt from FLSA overtime pay and earn 1.5 times pay for hours worked over 40 in a given week. The tabulations below are based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) survey data. The BLS job title groups are insightful, generally containing more specific job titles with similar knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA), but can be more broad than a particular company’s job title listing. Also, some companies may have the job title listed here as exempt from FLSA or state OT due to their specific job assignments. The BLS does not make a distinction as to if the job title is exempt or non-exempt from OT.

Occupational Group Title	Percent of OT Workers	Average Hours of OT	1 out of every 4 (25%) OT workers works at least:
Police Officers	30.86%	12.6 hours	60 hours

U.S. BLS data indicates that approximately 30.86% of police officers work overtime hours in a given week.  On average, these workers that have FLSA overtime work approximately 12.6 hours a week in OT. The average regular or straight time pay rate of these workers in the U.S. is approximately $27.24 an hour.  The average FLSA OT rate, not including supplemental pay such as non-discretionary bonus pay, is $40.86 an hour.

Source: BLS (CPS March)