Number of work stoppages involving 1,000 workers or more beginning in the period

The series covers all work stoppages--strikes and lockouts--involving 1,000 workers or more and lasting one full shift or longer. The Bureau does not attempt to differentiate between strikes and lockouts. The series does not measure the indirect or secondary effect of stoppages on other establishments whose employees are idled by material shortages or lack of services. For the series, a stoppage is considered to be ended when the number of workers involved dips below 1,000.

The series presents annual data from 1947 through 1981 and annual and monthly data thereafter; it is not comparable with the one terminated in 1981 that covered stoppages involving six workers or more.

Summary Data Available: The number of stoppages beginning in the period. The number of stoppages in effect in the period, comprising those that began in the period and those that began earlier and continued into the period. The number of workers directly involved in stoppages beginning in the period. The number of workers directly involved in stoppages in effect in the period. The total number of workdays lost by workers directly involved in the stoppages in effect in the period. Total workdays lost in the stoppages in effect, as a percent of the number of workdays in the period multiplied by total national employment in the period. (Private household, forestry, and fishery employees are excluded from total national employment.)

Observations are monthly in all cases. All percent changes are stored with one decimal place.

Updates become available about 3 weeks after the end of each month. All monthly figures are preliminary until final monthly and annual figures are issued in February.

References: BLS Handbook of Methods, Chapter 27, "Work Stoppages", Bulletin 1910 (1976).