Bureau of Labor Statistics

aid: bls-gov
name: Bureau of Labor Statistics
description: >-
  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the principal federal statistical agency responsible for measuring labor
  market activity, working conditions, price changes, and productivity in the U.S. economy. BLS operates the Public Data
  API at api.bls.gov, providing programmatic JSON access to published historical time series across more than 75 surveys
  — including the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Producer Price Index (PPI), Employment Situation (CES), Local Area
  Unemployment Statistics (LAUS), Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), Occupational Employment and Wage
  Statistics (OEWS), Employment Cost Index (ECI), Productivity, Import/Export Price Indexes, and Census of Fatal
  Occupational Injuries (CFOI). Version 1 is open without registration; Version 2 requires a free registration key and
  provides higher daily limits, more series per request, longer year ranges, catalog metadata, statistical calculations,
  and annual averages.
type: Index
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
tags:
  - Federal Government
  - Labor Statistics
  - Economic Data
  - Consumer Price Index
  - Producer Price Index
  - Employment
  - Unemployment
  - Wages
  - Productivity
  - Open Data
  - Time Series
created: '2026-05-25'
modified: '2026-05-25'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/bls-gov/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
  - aid: bls-gov:bls-public-data-api
    name: BLS Public Data API
    description: >-
      The BLS Public Data API is the agency's public REST + JSON service for retrieving published historical time series
      across every BLS program. v1 is open and unauthenticated with smaller daily limits and per-request caps; v2
      requires a free registration key and unlocks 500 queries per day, up to 50 series per request, up to 20 years per
      query, optional catalog metadata, net/percent-change calculations, and annual averages. All requests return a
      uniform JSON envelope with status, responseTime, and Results.series, where each series carries data points keyed
      by year and period (M01–M12 for monthly, Q01–Q04 for quarterly, S01–S03 for semi annual, A01 for annual, M13 for
      annual averages).
    humanURL: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
    baseURL: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2
    tags:
      - Labor Statistics
      - Employment
      - Unemployment
      - Consumer Price Index
      - Producer Price Index
      - Economic Data
      - Time Series
      - Open Data
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/api_signature_v2.htm
      - type: GettingStarted
        url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/api_FAQs.htm
      - type: Registration
        url: https://data.bls.gov/registrationEngine/
      - type: TermsOfService
        url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/termsOfService.htm
      - type: SignatureExamples
        url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/api_sample_code.htm
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: >-
          https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/bls-gov/refs/heads/main/openapi/bls-public-data-api-openapi.yml
      - type: JSONSchema
        url: >-
          https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/bls-gov/refs/heads/main/json-schema/bls-time-series-schema.json
      - type: JSONStructure
        url: >-
          https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/bls-gov/refs/heads/main/json-structure/bls-time-series-structure.json
      - type: JSONLD
        url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/bls-gov/refs/heads/main/json-ld/bls-gov-context.jsonld
      - type: SpectralRuleset
        url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/bls-gov/refs/heads/main/rules/bls-public-data-api-rules.yml
      - type: DataAPI
        url: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/
      - type: DataAPI
        url: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/surveys
      - type: DataAPI
        url: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/popular
      - type: RateLimits
        url: rate-limits/bls-gov-rate-limits.yml
      - type: Plans
        url: plans/bls-gov-plans-pricing.yml
      - type: FinOps
        url: finops/bls-gov-finops.yml
      - type: Examples
        url: examples/bls-get-unemployment-rate-example.json
      - type: Examples
        url: examples/bls-list-surveys-example.json
      - type: Vocabulary
        url: vocabulary/bls-gov-vocabulary.yml
    contact:
      - FN: BLS Data Support
        url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
        email: data_staff@bls.gov
features:
  - name: Time Series Data Retrieval
    description: Retrieve historical time series for one or many BLS series IDs in a single JSON response.
  - name: Multi-Series Batch Queries
    description: With a v2 registration key, request up to 50 series IDs in a single POST and span up to 20 years.
  - name: Date Range Filtering
    description: Constrain queries with startyear/endyear (and optional startperiod/endperiod) to retrieve only the range you need.
  - name: Statistical Calculations
    description: Optional net change and percent change calculations over 1, 3, 6, and 12 month windows on v2 requests.
  - name: Catalog Metadata
    description: Request series-level catalog metadata (survey, area, item, seasonality) inline with the time series payload.
  - name: Annual Averages
    description: Include the M13 annual average period alongside monthly values for CPI, PPI, and similar series.
  - name: Latest Observation Shortcut
    description: Append latest=true to the GET endpoint to retrieve only the most recent data point for a series.
  - name: Survey Discovery
    description: List all BLS surveys with their two-letter abbreviation and human-readable name.
  - name: Survey Metadata
    description: Inspect a single survey for capability flags (allowsNetChange, allowsPercentChange, hasAnnualAverages).
  - name: Popular Series
    description: Retrieve the 25 most-requested series IDs overall or scoped to a specific survey abbreviation.
useCases:
  - name: Inflation Monitoring
    description: Track CPI-U, CPI-W, Chained CPI, and PPI series for inflation dashboards and forecasting.
  - name: Labor Market Analysis
    description: >-
      Pull unemployment rate, labor force participation, payroll employment, and JOLTS series to monitor the labor
      market.
  - name: Wage & Compensation Benchmarking
    description: Use OEWS, ECI, and ECEC series for occupational wage and total compensation benchmarking.
  - name: Regional Economic Dashboards
    description: Combine LAUS and QCEW series for state, MSA, and county-level employment and unemployment dashboards.
  - name: Workplace Safety Reporting
    description: Surface CFOI fatal injury and SOII non-fatal injury statistics for ESG and safety reporting.
  - name: Productivity Research
    description: Retrieve labor productivity and unit labor cost series for productivity research.
  - name: Trade Price Analysis
    description: Pull Import/Export Price Index series to analyze cost pass-through in supply chains.
solutions:
  - name: Economic Intelligence Platforms
    description: Embed BLS series directly into market intelligence and macro research platforms.
  - name: HR Analytics & Compensation Tools
    description: Power HR comp planning and pay equity tools with OEWS and ECI data.
  - name: Open Government Data Portals
    description: Enrich open data portals and civic apps with BLS statistical datasets.
  - name: AI Economic Agents
    description: Feed BLS time series into AI assistants and Naftiko capabilities for economic analysis and forecasting.
integrations:
  - name: data.gov
    description: BLS datasets are cataloged at catalog.data.gov under the bls-gov organization.
    url: https://catalog.data.gov/organization/bls-gov
  - name: FRED (St. Louis Fed)
    description: FRED ingests and redistributes a large share of BLS series and is a common downstream consumer.
    url: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/
  - name: Census Bureau
    description: BLS QCEW and OEWS data align with Census Bureau geographic and industry classifications (NAICS, SOC).
    url: https://www.census.gov/
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.bls.gov/
  - type: Developer
    url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
  - type: Registration
    url: https://data.bls.gov/registrationEngine/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/termsOfService.htm
  - type: ContactUs
    url: https://www.bls.gov/contact/
  - type: LinkedIn
    url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bureau-of-labor-statistics
  - type: Twitter
    url: https://twitter.com/BLS_gov
  - type: Facebook
    url: https://www.facebook.com/BLSgov
  - type: YouTube
    url: https://www.youtube.com/user/blsgov
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com