The Open Employment Data Standards (OEDS) originated from a need to build a standard for anyone creating, storing, transmitting, or leveraging employment data. Standards are a necessity because employment records are at the foundation of our society — renting an apartment, buying a car, refinancing a home, applying for a new job, getting a new loan — this information is at the core of any approval process.

After working on this project for multiple years, it became apparent that building a consortium for standardizing employment data requires a strong and independent team with adequate funding. Unfortunately, we currently do not have the bandwidth for such an undertaking.

A consortium also requires willing cooperation from other participants and a free access to the data standards currently employed by the different vendors. However, many vendors chose to restrict access to their data availability.

We are grateful to Argyle for this opportunity. As the level of transparency across the industry increases, we will come back to this endeavour for another iteration.