No matter how many jobs are promised, Barak Obama’s administration will be nearly impossible to beat when it comes to employment growth. The following code uses the blcrapeR package, which is available on CRAN.

Politicians talk a lot about jobs and unemployment, even though the actual power they have over the labor market is up for debate. Before you comment, please know I have no interest in politics, but ggplot2 is my friend!

library(blscrapeR)

df <- bls_api(c("LNS12000000", "LNS13000000", "LNS14000000"),
              startyear = 2008, endyear = 2017) %>%
    # Add time-series dates
    dateCast()


# Plot employment level
library(ggplot2)
gg1200 <- subset(df, seriesID=="LNS12000000")
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(gg1200, aes(x=date, y=value)) +
    geom_line() +
    labs(title = "Employment Level - Civ. Labor Force")

# Plot unemployment level
gg1300 <- subset(df, seriesID=="LNS13000000")
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(gg1300, aes(x=date, y=value)) +
    geom_line() +
    labs(title = "Unemployment Level - Civ. Labor Force")

gg1400 <- subset(df, seriesID=="LNS14000000")
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(gg1400, aes(x=date, y=value)) +
    geom_line() +
    labs(title = "Unemployment Rate - Civ. Labor Force")