How to have ggplot show a label for each and every tick mark

Question

This may seem simple but the solutions that I have found have only made it more complex. Below is the reproducible code that I am using. A bit circuitous but that is part of the learning experience. The result before adding the scale x continuous portion using 4 labels on the axis. I need every period (24 in total) to be shown. I will worry about the formatting and angle of the text later but am a bit stumped at this point. Upon including the scale_x_continuous item I get the following error:

       Error in UseMethod("rescale") : 
       no applicable method for 'rescale' applied to an object of class "character"

       #Data generation
       Month1 <- c(201812,20191,20192,20193,20194,20195,20196,
        20197,20198,20199,201910,201911,201912,20201
        ,20202,20203,20204,20205,20206,20207
        ,20208,20209,202010,202011)
       annualjobgrowth<- c(44400,46000,42600,40500,42800,40500,36000,
                34000,32300,29900,21900,24500,21000,
                23300,16000,-6200,-275600,-249500,-149200,
                -136500,-129900,-122800,-113900,-109500)
       Rate <- 
       c(3.3,3.4,3.1,3.0,3.1,2.9,2.6,2.5,2.3,2.1,1.6,1.7,1.5,1.7,1.1,-0.4,
       -19.5,-17.6,-10.5,-9.6,-9.1,-8.6,-8.0,-7.7)
       cesyoy <- data.frame(Month1,annualjobgrowth, Rate)

      #Chart
      library(ggplot2)
      library(dplyr)
      library(lubridate)
      library(scales)


      cesyoy %>% mutate(year = substr(as.character(Month1),1,4),
              month = substr(as.character(Month1),5,7),
              date = as.Date(paste(year,month,"1",sep ="-"))) %>%
              ggplot() + geom_col(aes(x = date, y = annualjobgrowth))+
              scale_y_continuous()



    secondces<-cesyoy %>% mutate(year = substr(as.character(Month1),1,4),
                         month = substr(as.character(Month1),5,7),
                         date = as.Date(paste(year,month,"1",sep ="-"))) %>%
    ggplot() + geom_col(aes(x = date, y = annualjobgrowth),fill = "#00abff")+
    scale_y_continuous(labels=comma,breaks=c(50000,0,-50000,-100000,-150000,-200000,-250000))
    +scale_x_continuous(labels=as.character(x),breaks=x)+
    scale_fill_brewer(palette="Dark2")

Answer 1

Use scale_x_date to format a date axis. Adapting your code, we can do the following:

cesyoy %>% 
  mutate(year = substr(as.character(Month1),1,4),
         month = substr(as.character(Month1),5,7),
         date = as.Date(paste(year,month,"1",sep ="-"))) %>%
  ggplot() + 
  geom_col(aes(x = date, y = annualjobgrowth)) +
  scale_x_date(date_breaks="1 month", date_labels="%b\n%Y")

I've chosen a particular format for the date labels, but you can adjust this by tweaking the date_labels argument. See the help for strftime for details on formatting codes and options.

scale_x_date is in place of scale_x_continuous, rather than in addition to it. You can only use one scale function for a given scale. If you add a new scale for, say, the x-axis, it will replace the previous scale_x_***. So, however you want to customize the x-axis scale, you would do all of it in a single call to scale_x_date.