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QCEW

Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages

Labor outcomesPublicFirm-side
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Specific Type
Core firm survey
Dataset Type
Pooled cross-sectional
Institution
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Institution Type
Federal government
Level of Focus
Establishment
Most Granular Level
County level (FIPS)
Perspective
Firm-side
Time Coverage
1975-present
Frequency
Quarterly
Sample Size
~10M establishments
Geographic Detail
County; MSA
Occupational Classification
Not specified
Industrial Classification
6-digit NAICS 2017
Other Classification
County-level (FIPS); ownership sector
Key Variables
Employment, wages, establishments by detailed industry and geography
AI/Tech Tracking
Not specified
Access Details
Publicly available (CSV downloads)
Notes
Census of UI-covered employment (96% of jobs); excludes self-employed, military, railroad; primary benchmark for other BLS surveys