Quaterly Census of Employment and Wages QCEW Workforce Solutions

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QCEW Workforce Analysis Solutions
-- integrating employment, establistments & wages into planning & operations

.. updates section; quarterly census of employment and wages; frequent changes

From March 2025 to March 2026, employment increased in 151 of the 376 largest U.S. counties. Licking, Ohio (in the Columbus metropolitan area), had the largest over-the-year increase in employment, with a gain of 3.6 percent. Washington, DC, and Arlington, Virginia, had the largest over-the-year percentage decreases in employment (-4.5 percent each). Within Washington, the largest employment decrease occurred in government, while in Arlington, the largest employment decrease was in professional and business services. In Montgomery, Maryland (also in the Washington metropolitan area), employment decreased 4.0 percent.

The QCEW data are released quarterly. The County Employment and Wages release for second quarter 2026 is scheduled to be released on Wednesday, December 2, 2026 at 10:00 am ET.

Installer last updated 08/22/26 .. register here

Using the QCEW Workforce Solutions
The start-up view of the QCEW Workforce Analysis program is shown below. The user selects a county in left panel and the profile is shown in the grid at right. Click graphic for actual view.

Web Sessions
The state of development of the QCEW Workforce Analysis is presented at each web session conducted Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Examples
• Cowley County, KS HTML Winfield & Arkansas
• Sedgwick County, KS HTML Wichita

Related Sections
• QCEW Interactive Table
• County Business Patterns data by county, ZIP code & Congressional District
• NAICS Codes .. NAICS Codes lists

About QCEW
The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program publishes a quarterly count of employment and wages reported by employers covering more than 95 percent of U.S. jobs, available at the county, MSA, state and national levels by industry. QCEW is a comprehensive statistical program administered by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that provides a near-census count of employment and wages across the United States. Key details about the QCEW program include:

What it measures: It publishes a quarterly count of employment and wages reported by employers. It includes monthly employment data and quarterly wage data.
Scope: The data covers more than 95% of U.S. jobs, encompassing workers covered by state unemployment insurance (UI) laws and federal workers covered by the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) program.
Granularity: It provides these statistics at the county, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), state, and national levels. The data is also highly detailed by industry, using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
Significance: Because it is essentially a census rather than a sample survey, QCEW data is considered highly accurate and serves as a vital benchmark for other economic indicators and labor market information.

Limitations
Subject matter suppression -- so that identity and characteristics or large firms in a county are not revealed.
Place of work data; not place of residence
County is the smallest geography tabulated
Data are released only in CSV structure

Patterns of QCEW
This graphic shows 4th quarter 2025 QCEW average weekly wage data for the finanicial sector for the U.S. by state.

Support Using these Resources .. goto top
Learn more about demographic economic data and related analytical tools. Join us in a web session. Each informal session is focused on a specific topic. The open structure also provides for Q&A and discussion of application issues of interest to participants.

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Additional Information
ProximityOne develops geographic-demographic-economic data and analytical tools and helps organizations knit together and use diverse data in a decision-making and analytical framework. We develop custom demographic/economic estimates and projections, develop geographic and geocoded address files, and assist with impact and geospatial analyses. Wide-ranging organizations use our tools (software, data, methodologies) to analyze their own data integrated with other data. Contact ProximityOne (888-364-7656) with questions about data covered in this section or to discuss custom estimates, projections or analyses for your areas of interest.