The National Unemployment Rate and Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) is a BLS program produced as a state and federal partnership. These are monthly unemployment numbers produced for the US, states, counties, large cities, and Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA).
Data Sources
| National | State/Local | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Source | BLS | BLS | LAUS has a variety of small areas available, including a state option to publish cities that don’t meet the national thresholds and regional variations in types of areas. State and MSA data will be published by the BLS later than National Data. |
| STARS | LAUSToo | These are for editing and controlled access by LMI Analysts. State-level data is available for download before official BLS publication. | |
| WID Version? | Download Here | Download Here | This comes from publicly available BLS data and will be available shortly after the official publication date/time. |
Table Format
With version 2.7, data fields were added for Labor Force Participation Rates (LFPR) and Employment to Population Ratio (EPR). These variables are available nationally and at the state level through STARS. Because they’re not posted publicly by the BLS at the state level the national download file has been updated to reflect the new table format, but the states data file has not (new LFPR and EPR fields can be left as NULL).
Update Calendar
National: https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/empsit.htm
State: https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/laus.htm
Related Tables
Links to the table description in the current structure document. Note: Page anchors do not work in Microsoft Edge (the default browser for some states).
