Context

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System. The BLS is a governmental statistical agency that collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates essential statistical data to the American public, the U.S. Congress, other Federal agencies, State and local governments, business, and labor representatives. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Labor_Statistics

Content

Bureau of Labor Statistics including CPI (inflation), employment, unemployment, and wage data.

Update Frequency: Monthly

Querying BigQuery Tables

Fork this kernel to get started.

Acknowledgements

https://bigquery.cloud.google.com/dataset/bigquery-public-data:bls

https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/bureau-of-labor-statistics

Dataset Source: http://www.bls.gov/data/

This dataset is publicly available for anyone to use under the following terms provided by the Dataset Source - http://www.data.gov/privacy-policy#data_policy - and is provided "AS IS" without any warranty, express or implied, from Google. Google disclaims all liability for any damages, direct or indirect, resulting from the use of the dataset.

Banner Photo by Clark Young from Unsplash.

Inspiration

What is the average annual inflation across all US Cities? What was the monthly unemployment rate (U3) in 2016? What are the top 10 hourly-waged types of work in Pittsburgh, PA for 2016?

This dataset contains annual average CES data for California statewide and areas from 1990 to 2023.

The Current Employment Statistics (CES) program is a Federal-State cooperative effort in which monthly surveys are conducted to provide estimates of employment, hours, and earnings based on payroll records of business establishments. The CES survey is based on approximately 119,000 businesses and government agencies representing approximately 629,000 individual worksites throughout the United States.

CES data reflect the number of nonfarm, payroll jobs. It includes the total number of persons on establishment payrolls, employed full- or part-time, who received pay (whether they worked or not) for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th day of the month. Temporary and intermittent employees are included, as are any employees who are on paid sick leave or on paid holiday. Persons on the payroll of more than one establishment are counted in each establishment. CES data excludes proprietors, self-employed, unpaid family or volunteer workers, farm workers, and household workers. Government employment covers only civilian employees; it excludes uniformed members of the armed services.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor is responsible for the concepts, definitions, technical procedures, validation, and publication of the estimates that State workforce agencies prepare under agreement with BLS.

Graph and download economic data for All Employees, Government (USGOVT) from Jan 1939 to Aug 2025 about establishment survey, government, employment, and USA.

Reference Layer: Bureau of Labor Statistics Monthly Unemployment (latest 14 months)_This layer contains the latest 14 months of unemployment statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The data is offered at the nationwide, state, and county geography levels. Puerto Rico is included. These are not seasonally adjusted values.The layer is updated monthly with the newest unemployment statistics available from BLS. There are attributes in the layer that specify which month is associated to each statistic. Most current month: August 2022 (preliminary values at the county level)The attributes included for each month are:Unemployment rate (%)Count of unemployed populationCount of employed population in the labor forceCount of people in the labor forceData obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data downloaded: October 21, 2022Local Area Unemployment Statistics table download: https://www.bls.gov/lau/#tablesLocal Area Unemployment FTP downloads:State and CountyNationData Notes:This layer is updated automatically when the BLS releases their most current monthly statistics. The layer always contains the most recent estimates. It is updated within days of the BLS's county release schedule. BLS releases their county statistics roughly 2 months after-the-fact. The data is joined to 2021 TIGER boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau.Monthly values are subject to revision over time.For national values, employed plus unemployed may not sum to total labor force due to rounding.As of the January 2022 estimates released on March 18th, BLS is reporting new data for the two new census areas in Alaska - Copper River and Chugach - and historical data for the previous census area - Valdez Cordova.To better understand the different labor force statistics included in this map, see the diagram below from BLS:

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) Program is a Federal-State cooperative program between the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the California EDD’s Labor Market Information Division (LMID). The QCEW program produces a comprehensive tabulation of employment and wage information for workers covered by California Unemployment Insurance (UI) laws and Federal workers covered by the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) program. The QCEW program serves as a near census of monthly employment and quarterly wage information by 6-digit industry codes from the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) at the national, state, and county levels. At the national level, the QCEW program publishes employment and wage data for nearly every NAICS industry. At the state and local area level, the QCEW program publishes employment and wage data down to the 6-digit NAICS industry level, if disclosure restrictions are met. In accordance with the BLS policy, data provided to the Bureau in confidence are used only for specified statistical purposes and are not published. The BLS withholds publication of Unemployment Insurance law-covered employment and wage data for any industry level when necessary to protect the identity of cooperating employers. Data from the QCEW program serve as an important input to many BLS programs. The Current Employment Statistics and the Occupational Employment Statistics programs use the QCEW data as the benchmark source for employment. The UI administrative records collected under the QCEW program serve as a sampling frame for the BLS establishment surveys. In addition, the data serve as an input to other federal and state programs. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the Department of Commerce uses the QCEW data as the base for developing the wage and salary component of personal income. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and California's EDD use the QCEW data to administer the Unemployment Insurance program. The QCEW data accurately reflect the extent of coverage of California’s UI laws and are used to measure UI revenues; national, state and local area employment; and total and UI taxable wage trends. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes new QCEW data in its County Employment and Wages news release on a quarterly basis. The BLS also publishes a subset of its quarterly data through the Create Customized Tables system, and full quarterly industry detail data at all geographic levels.

The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OES) program conducts a semi-annual survey to produce estimates of employment and wages for specific occupations. The OES program collects data on wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments in order to produce employment and wage estimates for about 800 occupations. Data from self-employed persons are not collected and are not included in the estimates. The OES program produces these occupational estimates by geographic area and by industry. Estimates based on geographic areas are available at the National, State, Metropolitan, and Nonmetropolitan Area levels. The Bureau of Labor Statistics produces occupational employment and wage estimates for over 450 industry classifications at the national level. The industry classifications correspond to the sector, 3-, 4-, and 5-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industrial groups. More information and details about the data provided can be found at http://www.bls.gov/oes

The Current Employment Statistics (CES) program is a Federal-State cooperative effort in which monthly surveys are conducted to provide estimates of employment, hours, and earnings based on payroll records of business establishments. The CES survey is based on approximately 119,000 businesses and government agencies representing approximately 629,000 individual worksites throughout the United States.

CES data reflect the number of nonfarm, payroll jobs. It includes the total number of persons on establishment payrolls, employed full- or part-time, who received pay (whether they worked or not) for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th day of the month. Temporary and intermittent employees are included, as are any employees who are on paid sick leave or on paid holiday. Persons on the payroll of more than one establishment are counted in each establishment. CES data excludes proprietors, self-employed, unpaid family or volunteer workers, farm workers, and household workers. Government employment covers only civilian employees; it excludes uniformed members of the armed services.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor is responsible for the concepts, definitions, technical procedures, validation, and publication of the estimates that State workforce agencies prepare under agreement with BLS.

The Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program is a Federal-State cooperative effort in which monthly estimates of total employment and unemployment are prepared for approximately 7,600 areas, including counties, cities and metropolitan statistical areas. These estimates are key indicators of local economic conditions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor is responsible for the concepts, definitions, technical procedures, validation, and publication of the estimates that State workforce agencies prepare under agreement with BLS. Estimates for counties are produced through a building-block approach known as the "Handbook method." This procedure also uses data from several sources, including the CPS, the CES program, state UI systems, and the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), to create estimates that are adjusted to the statewide measures of employment and unemployment. Estimates for cities are prepared using disaggregation techniques based on inputs from the ACS, annual population estimates, and current UI data.

This layer contains the latest 14 months of unemployment statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The data is offered at the nationwide, state, and county geography levels. Puerto Rico is included. These are not seasonally adjusted values. The layer is updated monthly with the newest unemployment statistics available from BLS. There are attributes in the layer that specify which month is associated to each statistic. Most current month: July 2025 (preliminary values at the state and county level) The attributes included for each month are:Unemployment rate (%)Count of unemployed populationCount of employed population in the labor forceCount of people in the labor forceData obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data downloaded: August 27, 2025Local Area Unemployment Statistics table download: https://www.bls.gov/lau/#tablesLocal Area Unemployment FTP downloads:State and County NationData Notes:This layer is updated automatically when the BLS releases their most current monthly statistics. The layer always contains the most recent estimates. It is updated within days of the BLS"s county release schedule. BLS releases their county statistics roughly 2 months after-the-fact. The data is joined to 2023 TIGER boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau.Monthly values are subject to revision over time.For national values, employed plus unemployed may not sum to total labor force due to rounding.As of the January 2022 estimates released on March 18th, 2022, BLS is reporting new data for the two new census areas in Alaska - Copper River and Chugach - and historical data for the previous census area - Valdez Cordova. As of the March 17th, 2025 release, BLS now reports data for 9 planning regions in Connecticut rather than the 8 previous counties. To better understand the different labor force statistics included in this map, see the diagram below from BLS:

This dataset contains the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS), annual averages from 1990 to 2024. The Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program is a Federal-State cooperative effort in which monthly estimates of total employment and unemployment are prepared for approximately 7,600 areas, including counties, cities and metropolitan statistical areas. These estimates are key indicators of local economic conditions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor is responsible for the concepts, definitions, technical procedures, validation, and publication of the estimates that State workforce agencies prepare under agreement with BLS. Estimates for counties are produced through a building-block approach known as the "Handbook method." This procedure also uses data from several sources, including the CPS, the CES program, state UI systems, and the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), to create estimates that are adjusted to the statewide measures of employment and unemployment. Estimates for cities are prepared using disaggregation techniques based on inputs from the ACS, annual population estimates, and current UI data.

Extract from the Quarterly Census of Emploment and Wages (QCEW). More info available at: https://www.bls.gov/cew/downloadable-data-files.htm

The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) provides nationally representative estimates of how, where, and with whom Americans spend their time, and is the only federal survey providing data on the full range of nonmarket activities, from childcare to volunteering.

For more information visit https://www.bls.gov/tus/

2004 to 2021 Virginia Employment Status of the Civilian Non-Institutional Population by Sex, by Race, Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, and detailed by Age, by Year. Annual averages, numbers in thousands.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Expanded State Employment Status Demographic Data Data accessed from the Bureau of Labor Statistics website (https://www.bls.gov/lau/ex14tables.htm)

Statewide data on the demographic and economic characteristics of the labor force are published on an annual-average basis from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the sample survey of households used to calculate the U.S. unemployment rate (https://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm). For each state and the District of Columbia, employment status data are tabulated for 67 sex, race, Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, marital status, and detailed age categories and evaluated against a minimum base, calculated to reflect an expected maximum coefficient of variation (CV) of 50 percent, to determine reliability for publication.

The CPS sample was redesigned in 2014–15 to reflect the distribution of the population as of the 2010 Census. At the same time, BLS developed improved techniques for calculating minimum bases. These changes resulted in generally higher minimum bases of unemployment, leading to the publication of fewer state-demographic groups beginning in 2015. The most notable impact was on the detailed age categories, particularly the teenage and age 65 and older groups. In an effort to extend coverage, BLS introduced a version of the expanded state employment status demographic table with intermediate age categories, collapsing the seven categories historically included down to three. Ages 16–19 and 20–24 were combined into a 16–24 year-old category, ages 25–34, 35–44, and 45–54 were combined into a 25–54 year-old category, and ages 55–64 and 65 and older were combined into a 55-years-and-older category. These intermediate age data are tabulated for the total population, as well as the four race and ethnicity groups, and then are evaluated against the unemployment minimum bases. The more detailed age categories continue to be available in the main version of the expanded table, where the minimum base was met.

Additional information on the uses and limitations of statewide data from the CPS can be found in the document Notes on Using Current Population Survey (https://www.bls.gov/lau/notescps.htm) Subnational Data and in Appendix B of the bulletin Geographic Profile of Employment and Unemployment (https://www.bls.gov/opub/geographic-profile/home.htm).

The "https://www.bls.gov/tus/" Target="_blank">American Time Use Survey (ATUS) is the nation's first federally administered, continuous survey on time use in the United States. The goal of the survey is to measure how people divide their time among life's activities. In the ATUS, individuals are randomly selected from a subset of households that have completed their eighth and final month of interviews for the "https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps.html" Target="_blank">Current Population Survey (CPS). ATUS respondents are interviewed only one time about how they spent their time on the previous day, where they were and whom they were with. The survey is sponsored by the "https://www.bls.gov/tus/home.htm" Target="_blank">Bureau of Labor Statistics and is conducted by the "https://www.census.gov/" Target="_blank">U.S. Census Bureau. The data file available for download from the ARDA combines three files from the 2010 ATUS: the Respondent file, the Activity summary file and the Well-Being Module. Variables from the 2010 Well-Being Module have names that begin with the letter 'W.'

Note: The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that there was an error in the activity selection process for the 2010 Well-Being Module. Due to a programming error in the data collection software, certain activities were less likely than others to be selected for follow-up questions in the WB Module. As of October 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau were exploring ways to mitigate the error; more information on this error could be found at the following link: "https://www.bls.gov/tus/wbnotice.htm" Target="_blank">https://www.bls.gov/tus/wbnotice.htm.

Unemployment Rate in the United States increased to 4.30 percent in August from 4.20 percent in July of 2025. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States Unemployment Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

This layer contains the latest 14 months of unemployment statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The data is offered at the nationwide, state, and county geography levels. Puerto Rico is included. These are not seasonally adjusted values. The layer is updated monthly with the newest unemployment statistics available from BLS. There are attributes in the layer that specify which month is associated to each statistic. Most current month: July 2025 (preliminary values at the state and county level) The attributes included for each month are:Unemployment rate (%)Count of unemployed populationCount of employed population in the labor forceCount of people in the labor forceData obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data downloaded: August 27, 2025Local Area Unemployment Statistics table download: https://www.bls.gov/lau/#tablesLocal Area Unemployment FTP downloads:State and County NationData Notes:This layer is updated automatically when the BLS releases their most current monthly statistics. The layer always contains the most recent estimates. It is updated within days of the BLS"s county release schedule. BLS releases their county statistics roughly 2 months after-the-fact. The data is joined to 2023 TIGER boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau.Monthly values are subject to revision over time.For national values, employed plus unemployed may not sum to total labor force due to rounding.As of the January 2022 estimates released on March 18th, 2022, BLS is reporting new data for the two new census areas in Alaska - Copper River and Chugach - and historical data for the previous census area - Valdez Cordova. As of the March 17th, 2025 release, BLS now reports data for 9 planning regions in Connecticut rather than the 8 previous counties. To better understand the different labor force statistics included in this map, see the diagram below from BLS:

Context

This is a dataset that I built by scraping the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. I was looking for county-level unemployment data and realized that there was a data source for this, but the data set itself hadn't existed yet, so I decided to write a scraper and build it out myself.

Content

This data represents the Local Area Unemployment Statistics from 1990-2016, broken down by state and month. The data itself is pulled from this mapping site:

https://data.bls.gov/map/MapToolServlet?survey=la&map=county&seasonal=u

Further, the ever-evolving and ever-improving codebase that pulled this data is available here:

https://github.com/jayrav13/bls_local_area_unemployment

Acknowledgements

Of course, a huge shoutout to bls.gov and their open and transparent data. I've certainly been inspired to dive into US-related data recently and having this data open further enables my curiosities.

Inspiration

I was excited about building this data set out because I was pretty sure something similar didn't exist - curious to see what folks can do with it once they run with it! A curious question I had was surrounding Unemployment vs 2016 Presidential Election outcome down to the county level. A comparison can probably lead to interesting questions and discoveries such as trends in local elections that led to their most recent election outcome, etc.

Next Steps

Version 1 of this is as a massive JSON blob, normalized by year / month / state. I intend to transform this into a CSV in the future as well.

VITAL SIGNS INDICATOR Jobs (LU2)

FULL MEASURE NAME Employment estimates by place of work

LAST UPDATED March 2020

DESCRIPTION Jobs refers to the number of employees in a given area by place of work. These estimates do not include self-employed and private household employees.

DATA SOURCE California Employment Development Department: Current Employment Statistics 1990-2018 http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/

U.S. Census Bureau: LODES Data Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program (2005-2010) http://lehd.ces.census.gov/

U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Tables S0804 (2010) and B08604 (2010-2017) https://factfinder.census.gov/

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Current Employment Statistics Table D-3: Employees on nonfarm payrolls (1990-2018) http://www.bls.gov/data/

METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator) The California Employment Development Department (EDD) provides estimates of employment, by place of employment, for California counties. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides estimates of employment for metropolitan areas outside of the Bay Area. Annual employment data are derived from monthly estimates and thus reflect “annual average employment.” Employment estimates outside of the Bay Area do not include farm employment. For the metropolitan area comparison, farm employment was removed from Bay Area employment totals. Both EDD and BLS data report only wage and salary jobs, not the self-employed.

For measuring jobs below the county level, Vital Signs assigns collections of incorporated cities and towns to sub-county areas. For example, the cities of East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Redwood City and Woodside are considered South San Mateo County. Because Bay Area counties differ in footprint, the number of sub-county city groupings varies from one (San Francisco and San Jose counties) to four (Santa Clara County). Estimates for sub-county areas are the sums of city-level estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey (ACS) 2010-2017.

The following incorporated cities and towns are included in each sub-county area: North Alameda County – Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, Piedmont East Alameda County - Dublin, Livermore, Pleasanton South Alameda County - Fremont, Hayward, Newark, San Leandro, Union City Central Contra Costa County - Clayton, Concord, Danville, Lafayette, Martinez, Moraga, Orinda, Pleasant Hill, San Ramon, Walnut Creek East Contra Costa County - Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley, Pittsburg West Contra Costa County - El Cerrito, Hercules, Pinole, Richmond, San Pablo Marin – all incorporated cities and towns Napa – all incorporated cities and towns San Francisco – San Francisco North San Mateo - Brisbane, Colma, Daly City, Millbrae, Pacifica, San Bruno, South San Francisco Central San Mateo - Belmont, Burlingame, Foster City, Half Moon Bay, Hillsborough, San Carlos, San Mateo South San Mateo - East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Redwood City, Woodside North Santa Clara - Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Milpitas, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale San Jose – San Jose Southwest Santa Clara - Campbell, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga South Santa Clara - Gilroy, Morgan Hill East Solano - Dixon, Fairfield, Rio Vista, Suisun City, Vacaville South Solano - Benicia, Vallejo North Sonoma - Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Windsor South Sonoma - Cotati, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program publishes a quarterly count of employment and wages reported by employers covering 98 percent of U.S. jobs, available at the county, MSA, state and national levels by industry.

More information and details about the data provided can be found at http://www.bls.gov/cew

VITAL SIGNS INDICATOR Income (EC5)

FULL MEASURE NAME Worker income by workplace (earnings)

LAST UPDATED May 2019

DESCRIPTION Income reflects the median earnings of individuals and households from employment, as well as the income distribution by quintile. Income data highlight how employees are being compensated for their work on an inflation-adjusted basis.

DATA SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau: Decennial Census Count 4Pb (1970) Form STF3 (1980-1990) Form SF3a (2000) https://nhgis.org

U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey Form B08521 (2006-2017; place of employment) http://api.census.gov

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Price Index All Urban Consumers Data Table (1970-2017; specific to each metro area) http://data.bls.gov

CONTACT INFORMATION Vitalsigns.info@bayareametro.gov

METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator) Income data reported in a given year reflects the income earned in the prior year (decennial Census) or in the prior 12 months (American Community Survey); note that this inconsistency has a minor effect on historical comparisons (for more information, go to: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Downloads/methodology/ASA_nelson.pdf). American Community Survey 1-year data is used for larger geographies – metropolitan areas and counties – while smaller geographies rely upon 5-year rolling average data due to their smaller sample sizes. Quintile income for 1970-2000 is imputed from Decennial Census data using methodology from the California Department of Finance (for more information, go to: http://www.dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Demographics/Census_Data_Center_Network/documents/How_to_Recalculate_a_Median.pdf). Bay Area income is the population weighted average of county-level income.

Income has been inflated using the Consumer Price Index specific to each metro area; however, some metro areas lack metro-specific CPI data back to 1970 and therefore adjusted data is unavailable for some historical data points. Note that current MSA boundaries were used for historical comparison by identifying counties included in today’s metro areas.