ABSTRACT
This chapter examines labor statistics, a broad range of data on unemployment, the number of jobs, occupations, union membership, strikes, and workplace safety. American macro-economic policies, government training and education programs, equal rights efforts, and regulation of labor relations and the workplace all depend on labor statistics. A researcher's first stop often will be the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which publishes a wide range of information about the US workforce. At five-year intervals the Census Bureau surveys businesses in the Economic Censuses. On the first or second Friday of every month, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics announces the unemployment rate for the previous month. Historian Marjorie Conk charges that some of Alba Edwards's assumptions about job status were based on sexist and racist biases. Many anachronisms in the old classification scheme were rectified in the 1980 census when individual job titles were reallocated within the classification hierarchy.
