It’s time once again for large amounts of data, sliced and diced thin! Google announced on Monday the new Google Labs project, Google Public Data Explorer. You can check it out at http://www.google.com/publicdata/home with the available data sets to explore at http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory.

The front page of the Public Data Explorer had birth rates and life expectancy in a graph that had a slider, so different data could be viewed for different years. I wanted to take a look at the US unemployment rates.

The screen shot I’m showing has the US unemployment percentage with comparisons for a couple of different age groups, but you could also break this data down by state, by gender, or even by seasonality. The graph has an adjustable time span so you can narrow the focus of the data you’re looking at.

Once you’ve found an interesting set of data, maybe you want to share it. Look for the “Link” icon and you can either post a plain link or embed the graph. You can also choose whether to update the data in the graph as it becomes available or leave it static.

I look forward to seeing what other data becomes available thanks to this new project. And though I appreciate the worldwide and countrywide stuff, I would love to see more state-based sets becoming available…