# BLS LAUS

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.

## 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/](https://www.bls.gov/lau/) |
| 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](https://www.bls.gov/bls/linksite.htm) |
| 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](https://getcadastre.com/docs/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.

## See also

- [All datasets](https://getcadastre.com/docs/datasets)
- [Rights and attribution](https://getcadastre.com/docs/rights)
- [Data freshness](https://getcadastre.com/docs/freshness)