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-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/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: NaftikoCapability url: capabilities/bls-public-data-time-series.yaml - type: NaftikoCapability url: capabilities/bls-public-data-popular-series.yaml - type: NaftikoCapability url: capabilities/bls-public-data-surveys.yaml - 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