Monthly Archives: December 2011

BLS Data in Excel Format

If you’ve ever tried to get the data out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) you know that can be kind of a pain in the butt. You usually have to go through the wizards to get the data and then it only gives you one kind of data per table and you have to do a lot of tedious work to get that data into a format that is actually useful for additional work.

I finally got tired of doing this, so this weekend I put together a little program that takes BLS data and turns it into csv format, which can be opened in Excel.

Finally, I would really appreciate two things. First, please mention me (Matthias Shapiro) if you use the data for professional purposes, link back here to let people know where to get it. Second, if this is actually helpful data, please consider tossing $5 or so into my digital hat. I make maybe $50 per year from this blog, so anything to let me know this is worth doing is helpful to me.





Or you could buy a copy of my book Beautiful Visualization (disclaimer: I only wrote one chapter, but I call it “my book” anyway because that makes me feel important).

Download employment status (A Tables) (BLS link)

  • 1948 – Nov 2011
  • civilian population
  • labor force
  • participation rate
  • employed
  • employment-to-population ratio
  • unemployed
  • unemployment rate
  • not in labor force
  • persons who currently want a job
  • 1939-Nov 2011
  • payroll job counts for 150 industries/sub-industries
  • csv file (headers labeled “[state] – [field]” Example: “Alabama – Unemployed”
  • xlsx file (better headers, grouping states)
  • 1976 – Oct 2011
  • labor force by state
  • employed by state
  • unemployed by state
  • unemployment rate by state
Download state payrolls by industry (BLS Link)