Dataset · Labor
BLS LAUS
Available bls-unemployment
Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS): the unemployment rate for every metro and micro area, as the latest full-year annual average, with the latest published month kept as a separate measure.
- Publisher
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Category
- Labor
- Period
- Latest full-year annual average; the latest month separately
- Refresh cadence
- Monthly
- Measures
- 2
- Licence
- Public domain (U.S. federal government work)
Source
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Publisher | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Product | Local Area Unemployment Statistics (county and metro unemployment) |
| Source | https://www.bls.gov/lau/ (opens in a new tab) |
| Category | Labor |
| Period | Latest full-year annual average; the latest month separately |
| Refresh cadence | Monthly |
| Geographies | Metro and micro area, from BLS's own area series; counties are not imported, so a metro is never assembled from them. |
| Availability | Available |
| Cadastre key | bls-unemployment |
Licence and attribution
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Licence | Public domain (U.S. federal government work) |
| Terms | https://www.bls.gov/bls/linksite.htm (opens in a new tab) |
| Register status | Production approved; licence open |
| Allowed uses | evaluation, internal, public_display, derived_analytics, redistribution, bulk_export, public_geometry, api |
This source requires no credit line beyond naming the publisher. Cite it as U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics (county and metro unemployment).
Measures
The key is the measure's identifier in Cadastre. A measure stored for the metro itself is read as stored; Rule from counties is how a metro is assembled from its counties where it is not (see Methodology).
| Key | Label | Unit | Rule from counties |
|---|---|---|---|
unemployment_rate | Unemployment rate | percent of labor force, annual average | population-weighted county mean |
unemployment_rate_latest_month | Unemployment rate, latest month | percent of labor force in the latest month BLS has published (not seasonally adjusted; the month is in the import summary) | population-weighted county mean |
Known gaps and caveats
- BLS does not seasonally adjust metro series, so a single month moves with the seasons. The headline measure is the annual average for that reason.