* Bureau of Labor Statistics (LABSTAT)

This site offers very detailed data in a number of areas. Quoting from their documentation, they include:

• Average Price Data
• Collective Bargaining-State & Local Gov't
• Collective Bargaining-Private Sector
• Consumer Price Index-All Urban Consumers
• Consumer Price Index-Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers
• Employee Benefits Survey
• Employment Cost Index
• Employment, Hours, & Earnings-National
• International Price Index
• Special Export Comparison Index
• Employment Projections by Industry
• Geographic Profile
• Occupational Injury & Illness Rates
• International Labor Statistics
• Local Area Unemployment Statistics
• Department Store Inventory Price Index
• Major Sector Multifactor Productivity Index
• Producer Price Index Revision-Current Series
• Producer Price Index Revision-Discontinued Series
• Federal Government Productivity Index
• Industry Labor Productivity Index
• Major Sector Productivity & Costs Index
• State & Area Employment, Hours, & Earnings
• Occupational Injury and Illness Rates
• Producer Price Index
• Work Stoppage Data

Data is generally quite disaggregated; overall, there are many megabytes of files. Besides historical data, recent press releases are available.

For ftp access, all data is in the "pub" directory, which contains three directories: "doc", "news.release", and "time.series". For a short introduction, read the "README" file in the "pub" directory. Information on how the files are stored is located in the "overview.doc" file in the "doc" directory.

In general, the news releases in the "news.releases" directory are quite useful for tracking current events, while the great amount of detail in the actual time series will be quite useful for many researchers.

For gopher and web access, the basic structure is the same, but the names of the files and directories are slightly different.

• http://stats.bls.gov/blshome.html
• ftp://stats.bls.gov
• gopher://stats.bls.gov:70/1/
• Gopher:
  • direct: stats.bls.gov
  • indirect: USA/Washington DC/US Bureau of Labor Statistics (LABSTAT)
  • bookmark: Type=1 Name=Bureau of Labor Statistics Path= Host=stats.bls.gov Port=70 URL: gopher://stats.bls.gov:70/1/
• Information (on Internet access): labstat.helpdesk@bls.gov
• Information (on data issues): see the contact.doc in /pub/doc