Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

23 major work stoppages in 2022

March 01, 2023

In 2022 there were 23 major work stoppages beginning during the year. There were 16 major work stoppages that began in 2021. A total of 120,600 workers were involved in major work stoppages that began in 2022. Service-providing industries accounted for 98 percent of the idled workers over the year. Educational services, with 9 major stoppages, and health care and social assistance, with 8, had the highest number of stoppages over the year.

Major work stoppages, 1980–2022
Year Work stoppages Workers involved Days of idleness

1980

187 795,000 20,844,000

1981

145 728,900 16,908,400

1982

96 655,800 9,061,200

1983

81 909,400 17,460,700

1984

62 376,000 8,498,800

1985

54 323,900 7,079,100

1986

69 533,100 11,860,500

1987

46 174,400 4,481,400

1988

40 118,300 4,381,400

1989

51 452,100 16,996,300

1990

44 184,900 5,926,100

1991

40 392,000 4,583,600

1992

35 363,800 3,989,000

1993

35 181,900 3,981,200

1994

45 322,200 5,020,500

1995

31 191,500 5,771,200

1996

37 272,700 4,888,600

1997

29 338,600 4,497,100

1998

34 386,800 5,115,700

1999

17 72,600 1,995,800

2000

39 393,700 20,419,400

2001

29 99,100 1,151,300

2002

19 45,900 659,600

2003

14 129,200 4,091,200

2004

17 170,700 3,344,100

2005

22 99,600 1,736,100

2006

20 70,100 2,687,500

2007

21 189,200 1,264,800

2008

15 72,200 1,954,100

2009

5 12,500 124,100

2010

11 44,500 302,300

2011

19 112,500 1,020,200

2012

19 148,100 1,130,800

2013

15 54,500 289,900

2014

11 34,300 200,200

2015

12 47,300 740,000

2016

15 99,400 1,543,400

2017

7 25,300 439,800

2018

20 485,200 2,813,600

2019

25 425,500 3,244,300

2020

8 27,000 965,700

2021

16 80,700 1,552,800

2022

23 120,600 2,312,700

In 2022, the largest work stoppage by lost workdays and number of workers was the academic workers’ stoppage in the University of California system. The work stoppage began on November 14, 2022 and initially involved 48,000 workers. It continued until December 23, 2022, but the number of workers dropped to 36,000 on December 12, 2022.

These data are from the Work Stoppages program. To learn more, see “Major Work Stoppages in 2022.” Major work stoppages include both worker-initiated strikes and employer-initiated lockouts that involve 1,000 or more workers and last at least one shift during the work week, Monday through Friday excluding federal holidays.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, 23 major work stoppages in 2022 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/23-major-work-stoppages-in-2022.htm (visited March 29, 2024).

OF INTEREST
spotlight
Recent editions of Spotlight on Statistics


triangle