March 21, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

First NAICS-based monthly State and area employment numbers

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently converted its monthly industry employment data for States and metropolitan areas from a 1987 Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system basis to a 2002 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) basis.

[Chart data—TXT]

As an example, employment levels for California for January 2003 are shown in the chart. BLS aggregates the 20 NAICS sectors into the 11 supersectors shown in the chart. Note that the numbers in the chart are not seasonally adjusted.

NAICS is the product of a cooperative effort on the part of the statistical agencies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. NAICS uses a production-oriented approach to categorize economic units. Units with similar production processes are classified in the same industry. NAICS focuses on how products and services are created, as opposed to the SIC focus on what is produced. 

The NAICS approach yields significantly different industry groupings than those produced by the SIC approach. Consequently, the NAICS-based data by industry are not comparable with the previously published SIC-based data; SIC-based State and area employment series are no longer being produced or published.

See http://www.bls.gov/sae/saenaics.htm for complete information on the conversion of these State and area data to NAICS. 

These data are from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) State and Area program. Data in this article are preliminary and subject to revision. Find out more in "Regional and State Employment and Unemployment: January 2003" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 03–131.

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• First glimpse at NAICS data