Quarterly Workforce Indicators

Quarterly series covering roughly the most recent ten years, through the most recent release. Each release republishes the whole history, and earlier quarters change with it: "The complete QWI time series is recalculated with every release, so numbers may change in any quarter" (QWI 101). We use a single release at a time rather than combining several.

Publication lags the present, and the measures that require a worker to be employed across a whole quarter appear later than the rest.

Coverage is limited to jobs covered by unemployment insurance. The Bureau states that "UI-covered employment represents 96% of wage and salary civilian jobs in the United States, counting private, state and local, and federal government employment. At this time, however, Federal employment has not been integrated into the regular releases of the QWI." It adds that "Examples of jobs that are not covered by UI include some agricultural jobs, railroad employment, self-employment, and other exceptions that vary from state to state."

The Bureau publishes these indicators for counties, metropolitan and micropolitan state parts, and states. Birdseye uses the county series.

Counties are not census tracts, which is the grain Birdseye displays. Each tract takes the value of the county containing it, so every tract in a county shows the same figure and variation within the county is not represented. See how we combine geographies.

Not every area keeps reporting on schedule. The Bureau notes that "In the event that data submission or data quality issues are encountered, QWI production for a state may be skipped for one or several quarters." Where a county's most recent published quarter has fallen well behind the rest of the country, we show no value rather than present an old reading next to current ones.

Every published figure carries statistical noise. The Bureau states that "Confidentiality of the data is protected using a system of multiplicative noise infusion, whereby all released data are 'fuzzed.'" Figures that still fail publication standards are withheld and marked "Value suppressed because it does not meet US Census Bureau publication standards." Withheld values are treated as unknown, never as zero. Small counties lose more of them than large ones.

U.S. Census Bureau, "qwi_<state>_sa_f_gc_ns_oslp_u," Quarterly Workforce Indicators, R2026Q2, https://lehd.ces.census.gov/data/qwi, accessed on July 31, 2026.

Birdseye figures derived from this source are our own estimates. The Census Bureau and its LEHD program are cited as the source of the original data only, and are not responsible for our calculations.