Historical Employment Statistics 1990 - current. The Current Employment Statistics (CES) more information program provides the most current estimates of nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings data by industry (place of work) for the nation as a whole, all states, and most major metropolitan areas. The CES survey is a federal-state cooperative endeavor in which states develop state and sub-state data using concepts, definitions, and technical procedures prescribed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Estimates produced by the CES program include both full- and part-time jobs. Excluded are self-employment, as well as agricultural and domestic positions. In Connecticut, more than 4,000 employers are surveyed each month to determine the number of the jobs in the State. For more information please visit us at http://www1.ctdol.state.ct.us/lmi/ces/default.asp.

The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) Survey is a federal-state cooperative program between the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and State Workforce Agencies (SWAs). The BLS provides the procedures and technical support, draws the sample, and produces the survey materials, while the SWAs collect the data. SWAs from all fifty states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands participate in the survey. Occupational employment and wage rate estimates at the national level are produced by BLS using data from the fifty states and the District of Columbia. Employers who respond to states' requests to participate in the OEWS survey make these estimates possible.

The OEWS survey collects data from a sample of establishments and calculates employment and wage estimates by occupation, industry, and geographic area. The semiannual survey covers all non-farm industries. Data are collected by the Employment Development Department in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor. The OEWS Program estimates employment and wages for approximately 830 occupations. It also produces employment and wage estimates for statewide, Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), and Balance of State areas. Estimates are a snapshot in time and should not be used as a time series.

The OEWS estimates are published annually.

SOURCE: https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_emp.htm

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 Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program conducts a semiannual survey designed 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 for the nation as a whole, by state, by metropolitan or nonmetropolitan area, and by industry or ownership. The Bureau of Labor Statistics produces occupational employment and wage estimates for approximately 415 industry classifications at the national level. The industry classifications correspond to the sector, 3-, 4-, and selected 5- and 6-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industrial groups. The OES program surveys approximately 200,000 establishments per panel (every six months), taking three years to fully collect the sample of 1.2 million establishments. To reduce respondent burden, the collection is on a three-year survey cycle that ensures that establishments are surveyed at most once every three years. The estimates for occupations in nonfarm establishments are based on OES data collected for the reference months of May and November. The OES survey is a federal-state cooperative program between the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and State Workforce Agencies (SWAs). BLS provides the procedures and technical support, draws the sample, and produces the survey materials, while the SWAs collect the data. SWAs from all fifty states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands participate in the survey. Occupational employment and wage rate estimates at the national level are produced by BLS using data from the fifty states and the District of Columbia. Employers who respond to states' requests to participate in the OES survey make these estimates possible. The OES features several arts-related occupations, particularly in the Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations group (Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code 27-0000). Several featured occupation groups include the following: Art and Design Workers (SOC 27-1000) Art Directors Fine Artists, including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators Multimedia Artists and Animators Fashion Designers Graphic Designers Set and Exhibit Designers Entertainers and Performers, Sports and Related Workers (SOC 27-2000) Actors Producers and Directors Athletes Coaches and Scouts Dancers Choreographers Music Directors and Composers Musicians and Singers Media and Communication Workers (SOC 27-3000) Radio and Television Announcers Reports and Correspondents Public Relations Specialists Writers and Authors Data for years 1997 through the latest release and can be found on the OES Data page. Also, see OES News Releases sections for current estimates and news releases. Users can analyze the data for the nation as a whole, by state, by metropolitan or nonmetropolitan area, and by industry or ownership. As well, OES Charts are available. Users may also explore data using OES Maps. If preferred, data can also be accessed via the Multi-Screen Data Search or Text Files using the OES Databases page.

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.

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

The Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program is a federal-state cooperative effort which produces monthly estimates of produces monthly and annual employment, unemployment, and labor force data for approximately 7,000 areas including Census regions and divisions, States, counties, metropolitan areas, and many cities.

For more information and data visit: https://www.bls.gov/lau/

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/

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 (OEWS) Survey collects data from a sample of establishments and calculates employment and wage estimates by occupation, industry, and geographic area. The semiannual survey covers all non-farm industries. Data are collected by the Employment Development Department in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor. The OEWS Program estimates employment and wages for over 800 occupations from an annual sample of approx. 34,000 California employers. It also produces employment and wage estimates for statewide, Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), and Balance of State areas. Estimates are a snapshot in time and should not be used as a time series.

Graph and download economic data for All Employees: Government: Federal Government Excluding Department of Defense in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA (MSA) (SMU06310809091299101SA) from Jan 1990 to May 2025 about defense, Los Angeles, federal, CA, government, employment, and USA.

Data on health care employment and wages in the United States, by selected occupations. Data are from Health, United States. Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. Search, visualize, and download these and other estimates from over 120 health topics with the NCHS Data Query System (DQS), available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/dataquery/index.htm.

Data on health care employment and wages in the United States, by selected occupations. Data are from Health, United States. Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. Search, visualize, and download these and other estimates from over 120 health topics with the NCHS Data Query System (DQS), available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/dataquery/index.htm.

Analysis of ‘Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS), Annual Average’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/361f6e22-af6e-4432-a987-843f1f147b14 on 26 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

This dataset contains the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS), annual averages from 1990 to 2020.

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 7,300 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 employment security agencies prepare under agreement with BLS. Estimates for the remainder of the substate labor market areas 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 decennial census, to create estimates that are adjusted to the statewide measures of employment and unemployment. Below the labor market area level, estimates are prepared using disaggregation techniques based on inputs from the decennial census, annual population estimates, and current UI data.

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

Graph and download economic data for Multiple Jobholders (LNS12026619) from Jan 1994 to May 2025 about multiple jobholders, 16 years +, household survey, employment, and USA.

Labor force and unemployment estimates for States and local areas are developed by State workforce agencies to measure local labor market conditions under a Federal-State cooperative program. The Department of Labor develops the concepts, definitions, and technical procedures which are used by State agencies for preparation of labor force and unemployment estimates.

These estimates are derived from a variety of sources, including the Current Population Survey, the Current Employment Statistics survey, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, various programs at the Census Bureau, and unemployment insurance claims data from the State workforce agencies.

Washington State, metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) and nonmetropolitan areas (NMA), 2020 OEWS is a program of the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This federal-state cooperative program produces employment and wage estimates for nearly 867 occupations. The occupational employment and wage estimates are based on data collected from the OEWS survey. The survey includes employment counts, occupations and wages from more than 4,200 Washington state employers. Data from six survey panels are combined to create a sample size of more than 26,400 employers. Blanks in the data columns indicate suppressed data.

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program is a cooperative program involving the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the United States Department of Labor and the State Employment Security Agencies (SESAs). The QCEW program produces a comprehensive tabulation of employment and wage information for workers covered by State unemployment insurance (UI) laws and Federal workers covered by the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) program. Publicly available data files include information on the number of establishments, monthly employment, and quarterly wages, by NAICS industry, by county, by ownership sector, for the entire United States. These data are aggregated to annual levels, to higher industry levels (NAICS industry groups, sectors, and supersectors), and to higher geographic levels (national, State, and Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)). To download and analyze QCEW data, users can begin on the QCEW Databases page. Downloadable data are available in formats such as text and CSV. Data for the QCEW program that are classified using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) are available from 1990 forward, and on a more limited basis from 1975 to 1989. These data provide employment and wage information for arts-related NAICS industries, such as: Arts, entertainment, and recreation (NAICS Code 71) Performing arts and spectator sports Museums, historical sites, zoos, and parks Amusements, gambling, and recreation Professional, scientific, and technical services (NAICS Code 54) Architectural services Graphic design services Photographic services Retail trade (NAICS Code 44-45) Sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores Book, periodical, and music stores Art dealers For years 1975-2000, data for the QCEW program provide employment and wage information for arts-related industries are based on the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. These arts-related SIC industries include the following: Book stores (SIC 5942) Commercial photography (SIC Code 7335) Commercial art and graphic design (SIC Code 7336) Museums, Botanical, Zoological Gardens (SIC Code 84) Dance studios, schools, and halls (SIC Code 7911) Theatrical producers and services (SIC Code 7922) Sports clubs, managers, & promoters (SIC Code 7941) Motion Picture Services (SIC Code 78) The QCEW program serves as a near census of monthly employment and quarterly wage information by 6-digit NAICS industry at the national, state, and county levels. At the national level, the QCEW program provides employment and wage data for almost every NAICS industry. At the State and area level, the QCEW program provides employment and wage data down to the 6-digit NAICS industry level, if disclosure restrictions are met. Employment data under the QCEW program represent the number of covered workers who worked during, or received pay for, the pay period including the 12th of the month. Excluded are members of the armed forces, the self-employed, proprietors, domestic workers, unpaid family workers, and railroad workers covered by the railroad unemployment insurance system. Wages represent total compensation paid during the calendar quarter, regardless of when services were performed. Included in wages are pay for vacation and other paid leave, bonuses, stock options, tips, the cash value of meals and lodging, and in some States, contributions to deferred compensation plans (such as 401(k) plans). The QCEW program does provide partial information on agricultural industries and employees in private households. Data from the QCEW program serve as an important source for many BLS programs. The QCEW data are used as the benchmark source for employment by the Current Employment Statistics program and the Occupational Employment Statistics program. The UI administrative records collected under the QCEW program serve as a sampling frame for BLS establishment surveys. In addition, data from the QCEW program serve as a source to other Federal and State programs. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the Department of Commerce uses QCEW data as the base for developing the wage and salary component of personal income. The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the Department of Labor and the SESAs use QCEW data to administer the employment security program. The QCEW data accurately reflect the ex

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.

Employment: NF: sa: RT: GM: Department Stores data was reported at 1,020.200 Person th in Apr 2025. This records an increase from the previous number of 1,019.800 Person th for Mar 2025. Employment: NF: sa: RT: GM: Department Stores data is updated monthly, averaging 1,482.400 Person th from Jan 1990 (Median) to Apr 2025, with 424 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,769.000 Person th in Jun 2001 and a record low of 771.300 Person th in Apr 2020. Employment: NF: sa: RT: GM: Department Stores data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.G060: Current Employment Statistics: Employment: Non Farm Payroll: Seasonally Adjusted.