Data library

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

US county unemployment intelligence (BLS LAUS)

US county unemployment intelligence from the BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics county bulk files (keyless, U.S. public domain): 3,225 counties and county-equivalents (incl. DC and Puerto Rico municipios), monthly January 1990 to the latest published month, NOT seasonally adjusted. Core measures: unemployment rate, unemployed persons, and labor force (unadjusted). Method: the closed county slice is resolved from la.series (fail loud on any missing or duplicate series); the ~336 MB data file is streamed one series at a time; M13 annual averages are dropped; '-' cells are kept as honest NULLs; preliminary (footnote P) months are flagged. Derived signals per county: month-over-month and year-over-year change of the rate (YoY is the seasonal proxy for unadjusted data), trailing-12-month z-score of the rate, labor-force YoY percent change, a documented 0-100 labor_stress_score (fixed weights: 50% rate level vs the county's own history, 30% clipped YoY direction, 20% clipped z-score spike), within-month national quintile tier and rank of the score, a distress flag (YoY >= 2 pp) and a tight-labor flag (rate < 4% and not rising). Use as prediction features: join to customers/orders/leads by county_fips + date for demand, churn, and lead-scoring models — local labor-market stress leads changes in discretionary spending, subscription churn, and B2B close rates. Caveats: county estimates are model-based with larger error for small counties; the latest ~14 months are revised each January; always use YoY (not MoM) signals because the data are not seasonally adjusted; the stress score is relative to each county's own history, not an absolute cross-county level comparison.

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