US Unemployment by Occupation

📘

Ready to use this data? See the Core LMI reference documentation to get started.

Description

This dataset provides unemployment figures by area and occupation. Data is available by month from January 2010 through the latest month available in the version selected. Data is available at the national, state, MSA, and county levels. Only the total figure and two-digit occupation data are available. Unemployment is provided in both numbers and percentages, and is not seasonally adjusted.

When requesting an MSA code as the area constraint in a query, the code must be prepended by MSA (e.g. for MSA code 10540, use 'MSA10540').

The BLS definitions for many of our metrics can be found at the BLS unemployment FAQ.

Our twelve month averages are a less volatile metric to measure employment and unemployment, and are made by averaging the current month of employment/unemployment data with the previous eleven months' data.

Use Cases

Questions answered by this dataset:

• What major occupation group had the highest employment and unemployment in Ohio in January 2018?
• What state has the most employment and unemployment in healthcare occupations?
• How has occupation employment and unemployment changed over time in Kansas City?
• Which occupation in Missouri had the largest growth in employment in May 2021?

Metrics

• Employment: The number of employed people in the area.
• Unemployment: The number of unemployed people in the area.
• TwelveMonthAverage: The average of the last 12 months' unemployment.
• TwelveMonthEmpAverage: The average of the last 12 months' employment.
• LaborForce: The number of employed and unemployed people in the area.
• UnemploymentRate: Unemployment divided by the LaborForce.

Filters

• Area (Nation, State, MSA, County)
• Occupation (2-digit SOC)
• Year
• Month

Core LMI Metadata