# Industry Specialization (BLS QCEW Location Quotients)

> Industry Specialization (BLS QCEW Location Quotients) is a paid API for AI agents from agent-vending-production.up.railway.app, paid per call via x402, $0.01/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-12).

Returns which industries are unusually concentrated in a U.S. county using BLS QCEW location quotients, employment shares, and wage comparisons.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://agent-vending-production.up.railway.app/v1/industry-specialization?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.01/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-12
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/industry-specialization-bls-qcew-location-quotients-2f650508
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_fg8ZThB919cGCaVg1zWtR

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability industry-specialization-bls-qcew-location-quotients-2f650508 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: What are the top 5 most specialized industries in Elkhart County, Indiana — show me the BLS QCEW location quotients and employment shares so I can see which sectors are unusually concentrated there compared to the national average.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need official, validated BLS QCEW-based location quotients for a specific U.S. county — particularly for economic development analysis, site selection, workforce planning, or regional industry profiling. It is preferable over general economic profile endpoints when the specific question is about industry concentration and specialization relative to national norms, rather than raw employment totals or broad county economic summaries.

## Known failure modes

- Invalid or unrecognized county name returns a validation error — use 'County Name, ST' format or 5-digit FIPS
- Growth windows crossing the 2021–2022 NAICS reclassification boundary are refused
- top_n exceeds maximum of 19 returns a schema validation error
- Requesting a sector code not in the allowed NAICS enum returns an error
- Counties with suppressed BLS data (small employment counts) may return partial results

## How this service works

Pay-per-call machine utilities for autonomous agents.

## Output

Returns a ranked list of industries (up to top_n) showing each industry's location quotient (ratio of local to national employment share), local employment share, national employment share, and wage comparison — all sourced from validated BLS QCEW data. Optionally includes employment growth figures if include_growth is set.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "top_n": {
   "type": "integer",
   "maximum": 19,
   "minimum": 1,
   "description": "Full profile; default 10"
  },
  "county": {
   "oneOf": [
    {
     "type": "string",
     "description": "\"County Name, ST\" (e.g. \"Ventura County, CA\") or 5-digit county FIPS"
    },
    {
     "type": "object",
     "properties": {
      "fips": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "5-digit county FIPS (or 2-digit state FIPS)"
      },
      "name": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "e.g. \"Ventura County\" or \"California\""
      },
      "type": {
       "enum": [
        "county",
        "state"
       ],
       "type": "string"
      },
      "state": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "State name, postal code or FIPS (for county names)"
      }
     },
     "description": "A U.S. county (by name + state, or 5-digit FIPS) or a state (Local Economy Intelligence only).",
     "additionalProperties": false
    }
   ]
  },
  "sector": {
   "enum": [
    "11",
    "21",
    "22",
    "23",
    "31-33",
    "42",
    "44-45",
    "48-49",
    "51",
    "52",
    "53",
    "54",
    "55",
    "56",
    "61",
    "62",
    "71",
    "72",
    "81"
   ],
   "type": "string",
   "description": "2-digit NAICS sector (private)"
  },
  "sectors": {
   "type": "array",
   "items": {
    "enum": [
     "11",
     "21",
     "22",
     "23",
     "31-33",
     "42",
     "44-45",
     "48-49",
     "51",
     "52",
     "53",
     "54",
     "55",
     "56",
     "61",
     "62",
     "71",
     "72",
     "81"
    ],
    "type": "string",
    "description": "2-digit NAICS sector (private)"
   },
   "maxItems": 19
  },
  "vintage_mode": {
   "enum": [
    "latest_available",
    "aligned_2023"
   ],
   "type": "string",
   "description": "latest_available = QCEW 2025 (default); aligned_2023 = QCEW 2023"
  },
  "growth_window": {
   "enum": [
    "2022-2025"
   ],
   "type": "string",
   "description": "Only NAICS-compatible window; windows crossing 2021->2022 are refused"
  },
  "include_growth": {
   "type": "boolean"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "status": "OK",
  "product": "industry_specialization",
  "sectors": [
   {
    "label": "Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting",
    "status": "OK",
    "lq_statement": "LQ 8.97 means this sector's employment share is 8.97x the national share.",
    "naics_sector": "11",
    "bls_published_lq": 8.97,
    "employment_share": 0.0709,
    "local_employment": 23804,
    "location_quotient": 8.9656,
    "wage_premium_vs_US": -0.1022,
    "us_employment_share": 0.0079
   }
  ],
  "request_type": "full_profile",
  "reference_period": "2025",
  "omitted_suppressed_or_unavailable": []
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/industry-specialization-bls-qcew-location-quotients-2f650508/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from agent-vending-production.up.railway.app](https://www.zero.xyz/host/agent-vending-production.up.railway.app/llms.txt)