The Commerce Department’s Census Bureau today released the first in a series of state reports on the economy’s manufacturing sector from the 1997 Economic Census.

     The report, 1997 Economic Census, Geographic Area Series, Manufacturing: California, was released on the Internet. The remaining 50 reports will be released over the next few weeks.

     According to the report, California’s manufacturing sector shipped $379.6 billion worth of manufactured goods in 1997. Three industry groups accounted for about half of the manufactured goods — computer and electronic products ($113.5 billion), food products ($40.0 billion) and transportation equipment ($34.8 billion).

     California’s manufacturers employed 1.8 million workers in 1997 and had a total payroll of $65.8 billion. The Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif., Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area (PMSA) was he state’s largest manufacturing employer, with a total of 622,302 workers (34 percent of the sector’s total). The San Jose, Calif., PMSA employed 249,947 manufacturing workers, while the Orange County, Calif., PMSA employed 215,936.

     The report shows 1997 data for the state, counties, metropolitan areas and places. Data include number of establishments, establishment size, employment, hours worked, payroll, shipments, value added, costs of materials, capital expenditures and inventories.

     Statistics in the reports are prepared from data compiled from census questionnaires or administrative records from other federal agencies and, therefore, contain no sampling error. They are, however, subject to nonsampling errors from various sources, such as the inability to identify all cases in the actual universe; classification errors; differences in the interpretation of questions; errors in recording or coding the data obtained; and estimation of missing or misreported data. Steps were taken in all phases of collection, processing and tabulation of data to minimize the effects of nonsampling errors.

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