US Unemployment by Race

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

Description

This dataset provides unemployment figures by area and race. 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. 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:

• How has total employment and unemployment changed in Idaho compared to California?
• What is the ratio of Black to White employment and unemployment in my area?
• Has unemployment hit Asians more than Whites in the nation in 2020?
• What percentage of the labor force in Canadian County, OK is American Indian?

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)
• Race (Total, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, White)
• Year
• Month

Core LMI Metadata