Time series · qcew
County employment and wages (QCEW)
Quarterly employment, total wages, average weekly wage and establishment counts covered by unemployment insurance, all industries and ownerships combined, for every county, state and the nation from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, 2014 to the latest quarter. Each date is the first month of its quarter (2026-01 is Q1 2026). The national total covers the 50 states and DC; Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are listed separately. Connecticut appears as its eight legacy counties through 2023 and its nine planning regions from 2024, as BLS publishes it.
- Updates
- Quarterly
- Coverage
- —
- Current version
- —
- Last published
- —
- Validation
- —
- License
- US Government work
- Commercial use
- Allowed
Chart
Use the API
Each series and location is its own small file. The examples follow the series and location picked above. See the docs for versions, caching and errors.
curl
# One series for one place (.json or .csv)
curl -s "https://api.economicdata.dev/v1/qcew/total-covered/usa.json"
# Every series and place in one file
curl -sO "https://api.economicdata.dev/v1/qcew/download/qcew.csv" Python (polars)
import polars as pl
# One series for one place
df = pl.read_csv("https://api.economicdata.dev/v1/qcew/total-covered/usa.csv")
# Every series and place, with series and location columns
everything = pl.read_parquet("https://api.economicdata.dev/v1/qcew/download/qcew.parquet") JavaScript
const res = await fetch("https://api.economicdata.dev/v1/qcew/total-covered/usa.json");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error((await res.json()).detail); // errors are problem+json
const { meta, data } = await res.json();
console.log(meta.location_name, data.at(-1)); // { date, value, ... } Downloads
The whole dataset in one file, with series and location columns. Parquet keeps the column types and is much smaller.
- qcew.csv CSV
- qcew.parquet Parquet
Schema and series
Each series file has these columns. The bulk downloads add series and location columns in
front.
| Column | Type | Unit | Can be empty | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| date | month (YYYY-MM) | — | no | First month of the quarter |
| establishments | integer | establishments | yes | Establishments in the quarter |
| month1_employment | integer | jobs | yes | Covered employment in the first month of the quarter |
| month2_employment | integer | jobs | yes | Covered employment in the second month |
| month3_employment | integer | jobs | yes | Covered employment in the third month |
| total_wages | integer | USD | yes | Total wages paid in the quarter |
| avg_weekly_wage | integer | USD | yes | Average weekly wage |
| suppressed | true / false | — | no | True where BLS withheld employment and wages for confidentiality |
Series
| Series id | Name |
|---|---|
| total-covered | Total covered, all industries (ownership code 0, NAICS 10) |
Locations
Covers all 57 US states and equivalents (ids: us- plus the USPS code (us-ca, us-dc)); all 3,222 US counties and equivalents (ids: us-county- plus the 5-digit FIPS code); 15 more named places.
| Location id | Name |
|---|---|
| usa | United States (50 states and DC) |
| us-county-02261 | Valdez-Cordova Census Area, AK (through 2019) |
| us-county-02270 | Wade Hampton Census Area, AK (renamed Kusilvak, 02158, in 2015) |
| us-county-09001 | Fairfield County, CT (legacy county, through 2023) |
| us-county-09003 | Hartford County, CT (legacy county, through 2023) |
| us-county-09005 | Litchfield County, CT (legacy county, through 2023) |
| us-county-09007 | Middlesex County, CT (legacy county, through 2023) |
| us-county-09009 | New Haven County, CT (legacy county, through 2023) |
| us-county-09011 | New London County, CT (legacy county, through 2023) |
| us-county-09013 | Tolland County, CT (legacy county, through 2023) |
| us-county-09015 | Windham County, CT (legacy county, through 2023) |
| us-county-46113 | Shannon County, SD (renamed Oglala Lakota, 46102, in 2015) |
| us-county-78010 | St. Croix, VI |
| us-county-78020 | St. John, VI |
| us-county-78030 | St. Thomas, VI |
Place names come from the shared location registry; see Sources.
Source and license
- Source
- BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) open-data CSV slices
- Publisher
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- License
- US Government work (public domain in the United States) (
LicenseRef-US-Government-Work) - Commercial use
- Allowed
Credit the source with this exact text:
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (https://www.bls.gov/cew/).
Checked every 1 day. If the source hasn't changed in 120 days, the status page flags it as stale.
Endpoints
Every URL for this dataset. To pin the current version, put it after the id:
/v1/qcew@<version>.
The API reference describes each response.
| What | URL |
|---|---|
| Metadata: version, coverage, downloads, validation | /v1/qcew |
| Versions and monthly snapshots | /v1/qcew/versions |
| Series and locations | /v1/qcew/locations |
| Total covered, all industries (ownership code 0, NAICS 10) (JSON) | /v1/qcew/total-covered/{location}.json |
| Total covered, all industries (ownership code 0, NAICS 10) (CSV) | /v1/qcew/total-covered/{location}.csv |
| Whole dataset (CSV) | /v1/qcew/download/qcew.csv |
| Whole dataset (Parquet) | /v1/qcew/download/qcew.parquet |