Fetch local area unemployment statistics (LAUS) data over time

Fetch monthly LAUS data for a list of locations over a given time period, modeled after blscrapeR::bls_api. Requires a BLS API key.

laus_trend(
  names = NULL,
  startyear,
  endyear,
  state = "09",
  measures = "all",
  annual = FALSE,
  verbose = TRUE,
  key = NULL
)

Arguments

names: A character vector of place names to look up, either towns and/or counties.
startyear: Numeric; first year of range
endyear: Numeric; last year of range
state: A string: either name or two-digit FIPS code of a US state. Required; defaults "09" (Connecticut).
measures: A character vector of measures, containing any combination of "unemployment rate", "unemployment", "employment", or "labor force", or "all" (the default) as shorthand for all of the above.
annual: Logical: whether to include annual averages along with monthly data. Defaults FALSE.
verbose: Logical: if TRUE (default), this will print overview information about the series being used, as returned by the API.
key: A string giving the BLS API key. If NULL (the default), will take the value in Sys.getenv("BLS_KEY").

A data frame, slightly cleaned up from what the API returns.

if (FALSE) {
laus_trend(c("Connecticut", "New Haven", "Hamden"), 2014, 2017, annual = TRUE)
}