BLS Data to Excel Format & Source Code

Last month, I published BLS Data in Excel format. This can be helpful for anyone who ever wants to really dig into the data but doesn’t have the time to pull data out of the atrocious BLS data tables.

I’m going to try to make this something of a monthly thing, putting these data files on my website as soon as I can convert them so that the latest BLS data is always available in a helpful format.

Additionally, I’ve added the files for employment by metro. It’s only up till September, 2011, but it’s still some super cool data.

January 2012 BLS Files

A Tables (Employment/Unemployment)

B Tables (Employment By Industry)

State Employment/Unemployment

State Employment By Industry

Metro Employment up to September 2011

Brief Interruption To Beg

This took a not-insignificant amount of time and if you use it in anything resembling a professional capacity, I’d really appreciate a beer as a way of saying thank you.

 

BLS-To-Excel Application

For those of you who are a little more interested in the data and willing to follow a lot of directions, I’ve decided to publish the program I use for this so that you’re not reliant on me to publish this every month. I do mostly Microsoft development, so you’ll need Windows to run the project

BLS Data To Excel Setup

I’ve also loaded the project to github so you can go download the source code and make it better.

BLS-Data-To-CSV on github

The code is a disaster in a large part because the BLS data is something of a disaster. However, the app itself contains some helpful tutorials on how to get the data and make everything work.

It looks awful. But if you follow the directions, it works.

This will never be a professional application, but I’ll update it as I can. If you happen to have any talent in design, my “thing” is translating designs to reality. So if you want to send me even a screenshot of how you think this app should work, I’m happy to incorporate that into the next version.

5 thoughts on “BLS Data to Excel Format & Source Code

  1. Jim

    Excel setup would not download-missing data. Below is details:
    PLATFORM VERSION INFO
    Windows : 6.1.7601.65536 (Win32NT)
    Common Language Runtime : 4.0.30319.239
    System.Deployment.dll : 4.0.30319.1 (RTMRel.030319-0100)
    clr.dll : 4.0.30319.239 (RTMGDR.030319-2300)
    dfdll.dll : 4.0.30319.1 (RTMRel.030319-0100)
    dfshim.dll : 4.0.31106.0 (Main.031106-0000)

    SOURCES
    Deployment url : file:///C:/Users/Mom/Downloads/ParsingBLSData.application

    ERROR SUMMARY
    Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log.
    * Activation of C:\Users\Mom\Downloads\ParsingBLSData.application resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected:
    + Downloading file:///C:/Users/Mom/Downloads/ParsingBLSData.application did not succeed.
    + Could not find file ‘C:\Users\Mom\Downloads\ParsingBLSData.application’.
    + Could not find file ‘C:\Users\Mom\Downloads\ParsingBLSData.application’.
    + Could not find file ‘C:\Users\Mom\Downloads\ParsingBLSData.application’.

    COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION FAILURE SUMMARY
    No transaction error was detected.

    WARNINGS
    There were no warnings during this operation.

    OPERATION PROGRESS STATUS
    * [1/15/2012 4:07:04 PM] : Activation of C:\Users\Mom\Downloads\ParsingBLSData.application has started.

    ERROR DETAILS
    Following errors were detected during this operation.
    * [1/15/2012 4:07:06 PM] System.Deployment.Application.DeploymentDownloadException (Unknown subtype)
    – Downloading file:///C:/Users/Mom/Downloads/ParsingBLSData.application did not succeed.
    – Source: System.Deployment
    – Stack trace:
    at System.Deployment.Application.SystemNetDownloader.DownloadSingleFile(DownloadQueueItem next)
    at System.Deployment.Application.SystemNetDownloader.DownloadAllFiles()
    at System.Deployment.Application.FileDownloader.Download(SubscriptionState subState)
    at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.DownloadManifestAsRawFile(Uri& sourceUri, String targetPath, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options, ServerInformation& serverInformation)
    at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.DownloadDeploymentManifestDirectBypass(SubscriptionStore subStore, Uri& sourceUri, TempFile& tempFile, SubscriptionState& subState, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options, ServerInformation& serverInformation)
    at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.DownloadDeploymentManifestBypass(SubscriptionStore subStore, Uri& sourceUri, TempFile& tempFile, SubscriptionState& subState, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options)
    at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.PerformDeploymentActivation(Uri activationUri, Boolean isShortcut, String textualSubId, String deploymentProviderUrlFromExtension, BrowserSettings browserSettings, String& errorPageUrl)
    at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.ActivateDeploymentWorker(Object state)
    — Inner Exception —
    System.Net.WebException
    – Could not find file ‘C:\Users\Mom\Downloads\ParsingBLSData.application’.
    – Source: System
    – Stack trace:
    at System.Net.FileWebRequest.EndGetResponse(IAsyncResult asyncResult)
    at System.Net.FileWebRequest.GetResponse()
    at System.Deployment.Application.SystemNetDownloader.DownloadSingleFile(DownloadQueueItem next)
    — Inner Exception —
    System.Net.WebException
    – Could not find file ‘C:\Users\Mom\Downloads\ParsingBLSData.application’.
    – Source: System
    – Stack trace:
    at System.Net.FileWebResponse..ctor(FileWebRequest request, Uri uri, FileAccess access, Boolean asyncHint)
    at System.Net.FileWebRequest.GetResponseCallback(Object state)
    — Inner Exception —
    System.IO.FileNotFoundException
    – Could not find file ‘C:\Users\Mom\Downloads\ParsingBLSData.application’.
    – Source: mscorlib
    – Stack trace:
    at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
    at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath)
    at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)
    at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean useAsync)
    at System.Net.FileWebStream..ctor(FileWebRequest request, String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare sharing, Int32 length, Boolean async)
    at System.Net.FileWebResponse..ctor(FileWebRequest request, Uri uri, FileAccess access, Boolean asyncHint)

    COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION DETAILS
    No transaction information is available.

  2. Pingback: BLS Employment Data Set | Universal Visualization

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