BLS

You can access U.S. labor market data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics through a dedicated MCP server. This server lets you retrieve employment, unemployment, wage, CPI, and industry statistics in a structured way, enabling you to build dashboards, analytics, or automated reports using MCP clients.

How to use

Use a MCP client to connect to the BLS MCP server and run predefined tools that fetch time series data, CPI inflation categories, and employment statistics. You can query multiple series at once, explore common series IDs, and leverage shortcuts that return focused data sets such as unemployment, CPI categories, or employment by sector. Ensure you provide your API key securely to access BLS data.

How to install

Prerequisites you need before starting:

• Node.js (LTS version recommended)

Create or prepare your MCP configuration for the BLS server using the example configuration provided here. Replace the placeholder path and API key with your actual values.

{
  "bls": {
    "command": "node",
    "args": ["/path/to/bls/dist/index.js"],
    "env": {
      "BLS_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
    }
  }
}

Additional notes

The BLS MCP server exposes a set of tools you can use to fetch and analyze labor statistics. You will need to supply a valid API key from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to access data.

Key environment variable you must provide: BLS_API_KEY. This key authenticates your requests to the data API.

Tools and endpoints

You have access to a set of tools to retrieve and interpret data. The primary tools are described below and can be used to construct queries against the BLS data portal.

Common series and shortcuts

The server includes shortcuts to fetch commonly requested data sets, such as unemployment rates, CPI indexes, and sector employment. You can also retrieve time series for specific items by providing the appropriate series IDs.

Examples of data you can query

• Unemployment rate time series with national scope
• CPI data by category such as food, housing, or medical care
• Employment by major industry sectors over a date range
• Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data at employer or industry levels

Security and access

Keep your API key secure and do not commit it in code repositories. Use environment variables or secret management features provided by your deployment environment.

Available tools

query

Fetch BLS time series data for up to 50 series in a single request, including options for calculations and annual averages.

series_guide

Show common BLS series IDs and how to construct them for quick lookups.

get_cpi

Shortcut to fetch Consumer Price Index data, with options to select start/end years and CPI item categories.

get_unemployment

Shortcut to retrieve national unemployment rate data for a specified year range.

get_employment

Shortcut to obtain employment data by major industry sector over a given time period.