DOL BLS Data Collection Center (DCC) Operations - Current Employment Statistics (CES)

The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics is seeking a contractor to provide non-personal data collection services for the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program through a hybrid firm-fixed-price and labor-hour contract. The contractor will operate four Data Collection Centers located in Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; and Fort Walton Beach, Florida, along with a Help Desk in Suitland, Maryland, to collect monthly employment, hours, and earnings data from approximately 122,000 businesses and government agencies nationwide. Key services include address refinement, enrollment, refusal conversion, computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), web collection, and help desk support, with strict confidentiality and security requirements under federal regulations. Proposals will be evaluated based on technical approach, past performance, and price, with technical factors being significantly more important than price. The solicitation deadline is September 4, 2025, at 5:00 PM EDT, following four amendments that extended deadlines and provided clarifications through a comprehensive question-and-answer process.

This solicitation does not utilize any small business set-aside designations, though it requires a small business subcontracting plan with a 60% small business participation goal. The incumbent contractor is TelaForce, LLC, which currently supports 279 personnel across 347 workstations at the various data collection centers. The contract includes a base period from February 6, 2026, to February 5, 2027, with four additional 12-month option periods extending through February 2031, creating a potential five-year total performance period. The procurement covers multiple labor categories including Survey Workers, Computer Operators, and various interviewer levels, with wage determinations provided for each location ranging from $18.23 to $37.76 per hour depending on the position and geographic area. Performance will be monitored through a Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan with specific metrics for enrollment response rates, data collection accuracy, and help desk responsiveness, with contractors subject to performance evaluations and potential financial incentives or penalties based on their achievement of acceptable quality levels.