The Census Bureau collects data that measure the state of the nation's workforce, including employment and unemployment levels, as well as weeks and hours worked. Data collection also includes occupation, industry, and class of worker (e.g., self-employed, working for a private firm, or working for a government agency) in the American labor force, in addition to commuting behavior and estimates of home-based work.

We produce these statistics by age, race, gender, household composition, and a variety of other demographic factors. Employment statistics are also available at various geographic levels. The ability to link information about employment statistics to socio-demographic characteristics and geography allows planners and policymakers to identify impacts of policy changes on the public, forecast demand on infrastructure, address unmet needs, plan for emergencies, and guide decisions about how to allocate limited public resources.

Our statistics about employment in America come from a variety of data sources, including the American Community Survey (ACS), the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Survey of Income Program and Participation (SIPP), the Survey of Business Owners (SBO), and the Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll.

Subtopics

Commuting: Commuting (Journey to Work) refers to a worker’s travel from home to work. Place of work refers to the geographic location of the worker’s job. Work at home refers to a worker who does not commute to a different geographic area from work, meaning their place of work is their home. Daytime population refers to the estimated number of people who are residing and working in an area during the “daytime” working hours.
Disability Employment Tabulation: This 49-table tabulation shows the disability status and diversity of the labor force and population 16 and over for more than 4000 unique geographic entities.
Employers: Private Sector: Data on private sector employment provide comprehensive, regularly collected source of information on selected economic and demographic characteristics for businesses and business owners by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status.
Employers: Public Sector: Data on public sector employment and payroll measure the number of federal, state, and local civilian government employees and their gross monthly payroll for March of the survey year for state and local governments and for the Federal Government.
Equal Employment Opportunity Tabulation: The EEO Tabulation highlights the gender, racial, and ethnic diversity of the American labor force. It serves as the primary external benchmark for comparing the race, ethnicity, and sex composition of an organization's internal workforce, and the analogous external labor market, within a specified geography and job category.
Industry and Class of Worker (Employees): The U.S. Census Bureau collects data on industry, occupation, and class of worker for Americans in the labor force. These data cover the type of business conducted by a person’s employer, the ownership of that business, and the specific kind of work that that person performs.
Labor Force Statistics: Labor force statistics provide important information about the state of the nation’s workforce, measuring changes in employment rates and unemployment rates at the national, state, and county or city level every year by age, race, gender, household composition, and a multitude of other demographic factors.
Local Employment Dynamics (LED): The Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program produces new, cost effective, public-use information combining federal, state and Census Bureau data on employers and employees under the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership.
Occupation: The Census Bureau collects data on occupation, the specific kind of work a person performs, for American workers.
Public Sector Employment and Payroll: Data on public sector employment and payroll measure the number of federal, state, and local civilian government employees and their gross monthly payroll for March of the survey year for state and local governments and for the Federal Government.
Work from Home: Work at home refers to a worker’s lack of travel from home to a separate workplace. On the ACS, there isn’t a specific question regarding work at home; rather, the respondent answered “Worked at home” to the question, “How did you usually get to work LAST WEEK?”