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Labor Market (Snapshot)

Overview

The Labor Market Snapshot API returns the most recent print of every labor market series we track: the jobs report (nonfarm payrolls, the unemployment rate, participation, hourly earnings), JOLTS job openings, hires, and quits, and weekly jobless claims. That is 24 rows, each with the change from the prior period and from a year earlier computed for you. Monthly series show their latest month and weekly series their latest week. Pass series to get one row. We source the data directly from authoritative government sources. The snapshot refreshes the morning each monthly or weekly figure is published. To get started, please create an account and grab your API key at financialdatasets.ai. You will use the API key to authenticate your API requests.

Coverage

Series

Monthly: payrolls, unemployment_rate, unemployment_rate_u6, participation_rate, hourly_earnings, job_openings, hires, quits. Weekly: initial_claims, initial_claims_4_week, continued_claims, continued_claims_4_week, insured_unemployment_rate. Each is seasonally adjusted (_sa) and, except the 4-week averages, not seasonally adjusted (_nsa). The full list is one free GET request away: https://api.financialdatasets.ai/macro/labor/series/

Reading the fields

  • date is the reference period, not the release date: the first day of the month for monthly series, the week-ending Saturday for weekly series.
  • value is the published figure in the series’ units (thousands of persons, percent, dollars per hour, persons).
  • change_prior and change_year are value minus the prior period’s value and minus the value one year earlier, in the same units.
  • change_year_pct is the year change as a percent, rounded to one decimal; null for series measured in percent, whose change is stated in points.
  • A change is null when the comparison period was not published. The newest week of a weekly series is the advance figure, replaced by the final figure when published.

Getting Started

There are only 2 steps for making a successful API call:
  1. Add your API key to the header of the request as X-API-KEY.
  2. Execute the API request. Add series to get one series instead of all 24.

Example

Labor Market Snapshot

Example Response

The live response has one row per series, 24 in total.

Authorizations

X-API-KEY
string
header
required

API key for authentication.

Query Parameters

series
string

Optional series id to return one row instead of all 24, e.g. unemployment_rate_sa.

Response

Labor market snapshot response

labor
object[]