Unemployment Data by Local Area

This data was sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics - Local Area Unemployment Statistics Program. The program is a federal-state cooperative effort in which monthly estimates of total employment and unemployment are prepared for over 7500 areas.

The Local Area Unemployment Dataset from ITS can be insightful for the following use cases:

1. Observing employment trends across geographic regions that will impact economic activity within the region.Predicting employment and unemployment trends across regions.
2. Integrating with internal sales prediction analysis to see unemployment impacts across regions.

Fields Provided:
SEASONAL - If the data was seasonally adjusted. U or S. Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique that attempts to measure and remove the influences of predictable seasonal patterns to reveal how employment and unemployment change from month to month. Use SEASONAL = 'S' FOR seasonally adjusted data.
-AREA_CODE - Geographic Area - (not related to Phone System Area Codes)
-YEAR - YEAR OF SURVEY
-PERIOD - Period of survey - M01-M012 - Jan to Dec, respectively. M013 is annual data.
-FOOTNOTE_CODES - Bureau of Labor and Statistics Footnote Code related to the period. Explained in detail in FOOTNOTE_TEXT field.
-UNEMPLOYMENT_RATE
-UNEMPLOYMENT_NUMBER - Total number of people unemployed
-EMPLOYMENT_NUMBER - Total number of people employed
-LABOR_FORCE_NUMBER - Total civilian labor force
-EMPLOYMENT_POPULATION_RATIO
-LABOR_FORCE_PARTICIPATION_RATE
-CIVILIAN_NONINSTITUTIONAL_POPULATION
-AREA_TEXT - Geographic Name of Area
-AREA_TYPE_CODE - see below
-FOOTNOTE_TEXT - Detailed footnote text.

Monthly labor force and unemployment series are available for approximately 7,500 geographic areas, including cities over 25,000 population, counties, metropolitan areas, States, and other areas.

For each area, the following measures are presented by place of residence:

- Unemployment rate
- Total number of people unemployed
- Total number of people employed
- Total civilian labor force

For states, three additional measures are available:

- Labor force participation rate
- Employment-population ratio
- Civilian noninstitutional population