The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects information from a variety of sources, including businesses, households, and the U.S. Census Bureau:
- Surveys
BLS conducts surveys of businesses and households to gather information on topics like income, expenditures, and characteristics. BLS statisticians design surveys, and field economists use a variety of methods to collect the data, including personal visits, mail, telephone, email, and video calls.
- Sampling
The U.S. Census Bureau selects samples of household addresses to collect data for the BLS. BLS also collects data from a sample of establishments each month on topics like employment, payroll, and paid hours.
- Web scraping
BLS can ask businesses to allow them to access information from their website using web scraping or an Application Programming Interface (API).
- Online portal
BLS provides an online portal for respondents to provide information or upload data files.
BLS edits all reported data to ensure that it is consistent and correctly reported.
