nonfarm payroll from bls and series ID question

[Agent86]

Hi,
I'm working on an expert advisor to trade news releases
Currently just working on nfp. So first I need to extract the data in order to use it from the expert advisor to make trades.

Pythons sample codes here:
http://www.bls.gov/developers/api_python.htm
Unfortunately the code is wrong and I made edits to get it working. Getting rid of the &quot which is for html and replaced with " real quotes instead to make it work.

Anyhow
When I search for a series ID for the requested query, I can't seem to find out which one to use for nonfarm payrolls.
The site indicates ID's here but I don't really know which to use and I do not get the results I'm expecting.
http://www.bls.gov/help/hlpforma.htm
Google search seems to indicate that it's series ID: CES0000000001. However, the bls sites shows it as CES0000000003

I want to extract the data for previous, forecast, actual for nfp
What series ID's would these be ?

Once I create an ea for this changing the series ID to make the code work for other news announcements would be relatively simple. I'm going to make it work on trigger data not just straddling the date of the news.

Does anyone know anything about the bereau of labor statistics and which ID's I should use for nonfarm payroll data ?

Please advise
Thanks

 

[Pharaoh]

Does the government include their own forecast? I though those were usually compilations of "expert" opinions, which is why different news calendars will often have variations in the expected number.

You might be able to lift the data out of a news calendar somewhere. You would want one which goes back a few years.

 

[Agent86]

Thanks for the reply, I'm not really sure about the forcast part but mostly wanting the data for previous/actual I don't seem to get the same data from bls website for total non-farm payrolls which leads me to the conclusion that I don't know what nfp data I'm suppose to be looking for. I know in general the nfp on economic calendars / reports shows a number but I don't know which number that represents.

I've already made my python code work for this series ID, but I can easily change it.
The goal is to create a dll for MQL4 that will be able to import these codes so they will be useful to metatrader etc.

I'm just not sure if that is how everyone is getting the data feed or which data feed is the one to use.
From what I can tell the bls currently isn't showing data for period M11 which is odd since I thought they were the main source for the data.

I don't really care where the data is suppose to come from I just want the fastest way to get it so I can make the code work.
I assumed it was the bls site.

Please advise if anyone knows anything about this subject of where the data originates from and how to get it.
Also which particular nfp is used

Thanks

P.S
And of course I'll make the code available for free once I finish the EA and the dll creation.

 

[Agent86]

OK, made some progress. Talked to someone at BLS they explained that the series ID contains all the data however the actual nonfarm payrole is not actually a data feed but an extrapolation of the difference of the current and previous. So it's a calculated total upon the release of data and not actually a reported feed.

I had no idea I thought for sure it was a total included in the seriesID of data. So now all I have to do is code the difference from the higher number and report the number in my totals.
I had no idea that is what it was.