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Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey
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The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly survey of households conducted by the Bureau of Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It provides a comprehensive body of data on the labor force, employment, unemployment, persons not in the labor force, hours of work, earnings, and other demographic and labor force characteristics.

Next Releases:

  • The Employment Situation for December 2020 is scheduled to be released on January 8, 2021, at 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time.

CPS News Releases

Payroll employment rises by 245,000 in November; unemployment rate edges down to 6.7%

12/04/2020

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 245,000 in November, and the unemployment rate edged down to 6.7 percent. These improvements reflect the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed due to COVID-19, though the pace of improvement has moderated in recent months.
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Featured News Releases:

The union membership rate is 10.3% in 2019, down from 10.5% in 2018

01/22/2020

The union membership rate was 10.3 percent in 2019, down by 0.2 percentage point from 2018. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions was little changed at 14.6 million in 2019.
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Current CPS Economic News Releases:

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CPS Databases

Databases

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Labor Force Statistics
(Current Population Survey - CPS)
  Top Picks for CPS Data Finder for CPS One Screen Data Search for CPS   Tables for CPS Text Files for CPS
Weekly & Hourly Earnings
(Current Population Survey - CPS)
  Top Picks for CPS earnings Data Finder for CPS earnings One Screen Data Search for CPS earnings   Tables for CPS earnings Text Files for CPS earnings
Union Affiliation Data
(Current Population Survey - CPS)
  Top Picks for CPS Union Data Finder for CPS Union One Screen Data Search for CPS Union   Tables for CPS Union Text Files  for CPS Union
Marital and family labor force statistics
(Current Population Survey - CPS)
  Top Picks for CPS Marital and family Data Finder for CPS Marital and family     Tables for CPS Marital and family Text Files for CPS Marital and family

 

 

Historical News Release Tables

Table Name News Release Tables
Historical 'A' Tables (Household data): Previous years and months
Employment Situation News Release (monthly)
Current Population Survey (CPS)
Tables
Historical 'B' Tables (Establishment data): Previous years and months
Employment Situation News Release (monthly)
Current Employment Statistics (CES)
Tables
Weekly Earnings Tables: Previous quarters
Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers News Release (quarterly)
Current Population Survey (CPS)
Tables
Union Affiliation Tables: Previous years
Union Members News Release (annual)
Current Population Survey (CPS)
Tables
Access to Historical Data Series by Subject: Previous years and months
Browse labor force, employment, unemployment, and other data by subject
Current Population Survey (CPS)
Tables

More Tools

  • Series Report — Already know the series identifier for the statistic you want? Use this shortcut to retrieve your data. (See tab-delimited files below for series id codes.)
  • Compressed flat files site — For those who want it all. Download a compressed flat file of the entire LN database or large subset of the LN database.

Featured CPS Tables

Most-Requested CPS Tables

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

Annual tables   Monthly tables   Quarterly tables

All CPS Data Tables »

CPS Publications

CPS Frequently Asked Questions

CPS Special Notices

  • BLS discovered errors in some estimates in the Profile of the Working Poor series of reports. More Info
  • The impact of the partial federal government shutdown on the Employment Situation for October 2013. More Info

Related Links to Other BLS Information

Other Useful Links

Contact Us

Contact the Current Population Survey (CPS)


State, city, and county labor force data

Labor force information for Census regions and divisions, states, counties, metropolitan areas, and many cities are available separately from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. Contact LAUS by e-mail or call (202) 691-6392.



National labor force data

CPS economists are available to assist you Monday through Friday (8:30 A.M. - 4:30 P.M. Eastern Time), 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 e-mail questions and then call for the same information.

For assistance with these special topics:

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)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not provide information about income and poverty

 

Latest Numbers

RSS

Seasonally Adjusted

Unemployment Rate:
6.7% in Nov 2020 Historical Data

Change in Unemployment Level:
-326,000 in Nov 2020 Historical Data

Change in Employment Level:
-74,000 in Nov 2020 Historical Data

Change in Civilian Labor Force Level:
-400,000 in Nov 2020 Historical Data

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate:
61.5% in Nov 2020 Historical Data

Employment-Population Ratio:
57.3% in Nov 2020 Historical Data

Annual Averages

Unemployment Rate:
3.7% for 2019 Historical Data

Unemployment Level:
6,001,000 for 2019 Historical Data

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