Samer Hijjazi

Navigating the BLS API with R: A Step-by-Step Guide

Lighting Talk, 2:30 - 2:55 PM

This talk will demonstrate how to leverage the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) API in R to access the many different datasets provided by BLS. The BLS site offers lots of data pertaining to employment and consumer price indexes, all of which are connected to its API.

Throughout the session, best practices for working with the BLS API will be emphasized. Attendees will learn how to request the API key, how to use the httr package to access the data, and learn about the series ID format used by BLS as a way of labeling the different datasets.

This session is aimed at all levels of R users. You do not have to be an expert in R, nor in APIs to benefit from this session.

Pronouns: he/him Houston, TX, USA Samer Hijjazi (pronounced as Sam-er He-jah-zee) currently works at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas as a Data Scientist in the Finance & Analytics department. His areas of expertise include data analysis and data collection, with an emphasis on web scraping. Samer has close to 5 years of experience working in Healthcare Administration, Higher Education, and Human Resource Analytics. In his spare time, Samer has his own YouTube channel (@SamerHijjazi) where he creates analytics content, primarily in R.