Bureau of Labor Statistics
| Author | Bernard Newman |
| Pages | 60-61 |
Page 60
"Is employment below or above the level of last month?" "What has happened to prices during the past month?" Such questions—and thousands of others about a wide range of labor-related topics—are answered by personnel of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). When the BLS was established by Congress on June 27, 1884, its mission was stated in these words: "The general design and duties of the Bureau of Labor shall be to acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with labor, in the more general and comprehensive sense of that word, and especially upon its relation to capital, the hours of labor, social, intellectual, and moral prosperity." The BLS is an independent national statistical agency that collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates essential statistical data to the citizens of the United States, the U.S. Congress, other federal agencies, state and local governments, businesses, and labor. The president appoints the head of the BLS, the commissioner, with approval by the Senate for a specific term that does not coincide with that of his administration.
The BLS is distinct from the policy-making and enforcement activities of the Department of Labor. The BLS is impartial, with a strong commitment to integrity and objectivity; its data have credibility because of the standards maintained throughout the agency. The major areas of BLS activity are:
Employment and unemployment
Prices and living conditions
Compensation and working conditions
Productivity and technology
Employment projections
Safety and health statistics
In addition to monthly figures on employment and unemployment, the BLS does a comprehensive breakdown of the age, sex, and racial and ethnic composition of the work force as well as of industries and occupations in which the workers are employed. Other characteristics are also tracked, including patterns of regional employment and the extent of participation in work by teenagers, blacks, Hispanics, women, and older Americans.
Each month the...
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