Employment Situation

January 09, 2009
Nonfarm payroll employment declined sharply in December, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.8 to 7.2 percent. Payroll employment fell by 524,000 over the month and by 1.9 million over the last 4 months of 2008. In December, job losses were large and widespread across most major industry sectors. More...
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Featured News Release:

Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers

October 17, 2008
Median weekly earnings of the nation's 107.2 million full-time wage and salary workers were $720 in the third quarter of 2008. This was 3.6 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 5.3 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period. More...
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Current CPS Economic News Releases:

• Employment Situation Summary (HTML) (PDF)
• Commissioner's Statement on the Employment Situation (HTML) (PDF)
• Subscribe to the BLS News Service-- receive The Employment Situation news releases by e-mail.
• Schedule of Upcoming Releases
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage And Salary Workers (HTML) (PDF)

All CPS News Releases »

Databases

Database Name	Special Notice	Top Picks	One Screen	Multi- Screen	Tables	Text Files
Tutorials: For help, try these tutorials
Labor Force Statistics including the National Unemployment Rate (Current Population Survey - CPS)
Weekly & Hourly Earnings (Current Population Survey - CPS)
Union Affiliation Data (Current Population Survey - CPS)

Historical News Release Tables

Table Name	Data Retrieval Wizard
Tutorial: For help, try this tutorial.
Historical 'A' Tables (Household data): Previous years and months
Employment Situation New Release (monthly) Current Population Survey (CPS)
Historical 'B' Tables (Establishment data): Previous years and months
Employment Situation News Release (monthly) Current Employment Statistics (CES)
Weekly Earnings Tables: Previous quarters
Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers News Release (quarterly) Current Population Survey (CPS)
Union Affiliation Tables: Previous years
Union Members News Release (annual) Current Population Survey (CPS)

More Tools

• Series Report —Already know the series identifier for the statistic you want? Use this shortcut to retrieve your data.
• Flat files FTP Site —or those who want it all. Download a flat file of the entire database or large subset of the database.

Most-Requested CPS Tables

• Employment status of the population, 1940s to date (TXT) (PDF)
• Employment status by sex, 1970s to date (TXT) (PDF)
• Employment status by detailed age, 2007 annual averages (TXT) (PDF)
• Employment status by educational attainment, 2007 annual averages (TXT) (PDF)
• Employment by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic ethnicity, 2007 annual averages (TXT) (PDF)
• Median weekly earnings by detailed occupation and sex, 2007 annual averages (TXT) ( PDF)

Annual tables   Monthly tables   Quarterly tables

All CPS Data Tables »

Most-Requested CPS Publications

• Research series on labor force status flows
• Recent trends in employment from the BLS household and payroll surveys (updated monthly) (PDF)
• How the Government Measures Unemployment

• Labor Force Characteristics by Race and Ethnicity, 2007 (PDF)
• Characteristics of minimum wage workers: 2007
• Highlights of Women's Earnings in 2007 (PDF)
• Women in the Labor Force: A Databook
• A Profile of the Working Poor, 2006 (PDF)

• Employment & Earnings Online
• CPS technical documentation

All CPS Publications »

People Are Asking...

1. Where can I find the unemployment rate for previous years?
2. How is the unemployment rate related to unemployment insurance claims?
3. What is seasonal adjustment?

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why does the Government collect statistics on the unemployed?
2. Where do the statistics come from?
3. What are the basic concepts of employment and unemployment?
4. Who is counted as employed?
5. Who is counted as unemployed?

All CPS FAQs »

• Research series on labor force status flows from the Current Population Survey

Related Links to Other BLS Programs

• Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the CES survey (National)
  • Monthly national data by detailed industry on employment, hours, and earnings of workers on the payrolls of nonfarm establishments.
• Local Area Unemployment Statistics
  • Monthly and annual employment, unemployment, and labor force data for Census regions and divisions, States, counties, metropolitan areas, and many cities, by place of residence.
• National Longitudinal Surveys
  • Several surveys gathering information at multiple points in time about the labor market and life experiences of six groups of American men, women, and youth.
• Occupational Employment Statistics
  • Data on employment and wages for over 800 occupations and for about 400 nonfarm industries for the nation, plus occupational data for States and metropolitan areas.

Other Useful Links

• Census Bureau Population and Household Topics
• Census Bureau's Household and Housing Statistics
  • Income and Poverty Data
• Joint BLS/Census Current Population Survey
• Employment and Training Administration
  • Weekly unemployment insurance claims data.

Contact the Current Population Survey (CPS)

• Search CPS topics A to Z
• View CPS frequently asked questions

Economists are available to assist you with data from the Current Population Survey Monday through Friday (8:00 A.M. - 4:30 P.M.), excluding Federal holidays.

• Contact us by e-mail
  
• Contact us by phone: (202) 691-6378
  To enable us to better serve all of our customers, please do not submit email questions and then call for the same information.

For assistance with these special topics:

• Employment and Earnings periodical (Gloria Goings): (202) 691-6372
• Microdata files (Peter Horner): (202) 691-6103
• Seasonal adjustment methodology (Thomas Evans): (202) 691-6354

Written inquiries may be directed to:
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Division of Labor Force Statistics
Suite 4675
2 Massachusetts Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20212-0001

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not provide information about unemployment insurance (UI):

• For information on the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (statistics), please contact the Department of Labor at (202) 693-3032.
• Unemployment Insurance Benefits are determined and administered by each state. Find your state contact information.