BLS Labor Stats

Live

Bureau of Labor Statistics time series — employment, wages, prices, and productivity by NAICS — with a curated industrial seriesId map for oil & gas, mining, refining, and pipelines.

What is BLS Labor Stats?

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics public API — Current Employment Statistics (CES national + SM state/metro), Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), Producer Price Index (PPI industry PCU + commodity WPU), Consumer Price Index, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover, productivity, employment cost index, and import/export prices — 73 surveys total. Anonymous tier permits 25 requests/day, ≤25 series, ≤10y span. Setting BLS_API_KEY raises caps to 500/day, ≤50 series, ≤20y span and unlocks calculations (net + percent change) and series catalog metadata. Ships with a curated NAICS↔seriesId map covering 50+ industrial slices — Mining 21, Oil & Gas Extraction 211, Drilling 213111, Support Activities 213112, Petroleum Refineries 32411, Pipeline Transportation 4861/4862, Utilities 22, Construction 23, Manufacturing 31-33 — because programmatic series-id construction drifts from BLS docs. Toggle on and use — no setup needed.

Available Tools

getSeries
Single series by seriesId. Pass startYear/endYear; with BLS_API_KEY, set calculations=true for net + percent change.
getMultipleSeries
Up to 25 series unkeyed (50 keyed) in one POST. Validates tier caps before sending.
findIndustrialSeries
Curated NAICS↔seriesId lookup. Pass naicsCode (e.g. '211' or '213111') or keyword ('drilling', 'refining', 'pipeline').
listSurveys
All 73 BLS surveys — abbreviation, name, hasAnnualAverages, allowsNetChange.
getSurvey
Survey-specific metadata for one abbreviation (e.g. 'CE', 'EN' QCEW, 'WP' PPI commodity).
getPopularSeries
Top recently-requested series for a given survey — useful for cold-start UX.
getServiceInfo
Curated NAICS coverage, tier limits (no-key 25/day vs key 500/day), period code reference (M01-M13), error-detection guidance.

Requirements

Toggle on
Toggle on and use — no setup needed.

Quick Setup Guide

Follow these steps to connect your AI agents to this connector

Open /mcp and enable BLS Labor Stats with the toggle — no credentials needed for the 25-req/day tier.

Call findIndustrialSeries with naicsCode: '211' to discover Oil & Gas Extraction seriesIds. Then getSeries with one of the returned seriesIds for a 10-year history. Or getMultipleSeries with 3-5 ids in one call to compare drilling vs refining vs pipelines.

Register at https://data.bls.gov/registrationEngine/ for a free API key and set BLS_API_KEY in your Vercel environment to raise to 500 calls/day, 50 series per call, 20-year span, and unlock calculations + catalog.

Connect to Your AI Assistant

Choose your AI assistant below for specific setup instructions

Follow these steps to connect BLS Labor Stats to Claude:

Step 1: Open Claude Settings

Launch Claude → Click the profile button (bottom left) → Navigate to Settings

Step 2: Access Connectors

Scroll down to the Connectors tab → Navigate to the bottom → Click “Add Custom Connector”

Step 3: Name Your Connector

Enter any name you'd like for this connector

Step 4: Get the Connector URL

Step 5: Add the Connector

Paste the URL in the “Remote MCP Server URL” text box → Click Add

Step 6: Start Using

Your connector is now ready to use in Claude

Follow these steps to connect BLS Labor Stats to ChatGPT:

Step 1: Enable Developer Mode

Go to Settings → Connectors → Advanced → Enable Developer mode

Step 2: Create New Connector

Go back to Connectors page → Click “Create” (top right)

Step 3: Name Your Connector

Enter any name you'd like for this connector (descriptions are optional)

Step 4: Get the Connector URL

Step 5: Add the URL

Paste the URL in the “MCP Server URL” text box

Step 6: Set Authentication

Click the authentication dropdown → Select “No authentication” (PatchOps handles authentication internally)

Step 7: Create the Connector

Click “I understand and want to continue” checkbox → Press Create

Step 8: Using the Connector

Start a new chat → Click the + button (left of text box) → Open dropdown → Hover over three dots labeled “More” → Select your connector

Instructions for connecting BLS Labor Stats to GitHub Copilot:

Coming Soon

Detailed setup instructions for GitHub Copilot will be added here.

For other MCP-compatible platforms:

Step 1: Get the Connector URL

Step 2: Add to Configuration

Add this configuration to your MCP settings file. Replace the URL with your specific connector URL from the /mcp page:

"BLS Labor Stats-MCP": {
  "url": "https://patchops.ai/api/mcp/...",
  "type": "http"
}

Example Configuration

Here’s an example using PatchOps MCP:

"PatchOps-MCP": {
  "url": "https://patchops.ai/api/mcp/...",
  "type": "http"
}