EMBARGOED UNTIL: 12:01 A.M. EST, MARCH 23, 2000 (THURSDAY) Public Information Office CB00-48 301-457-3030/301-457-3670 (fax) 301-457-1037 (TDD) e-mail: pio@census.gov Michael Blake 301-457-1607 Pennsylvania Report First in State Series on Construction From Census Bureau The Commerce Department's Census Bureau today released the first in a series of state reports on the economy's construction sector from the 1997 Economic Census. The report, 1997 Economic Census, Geographic Area Series, Construction: Pennsylvania, was released on the Internet. The remaining 50 reports -- one for each state and the District of Columbia -- will be released over the next few weeks. Among the report's findings for Pennsylvania: - Approximately 230,000 construction workers were employed in the state; the payroll totaled $7 billion. - The value of construction work done by the state's construction establishments amounted to $33 billion. Approximately 88 percent of the work was done inside the state. - Buildings of all kinds, valued at $26 billion, accounted for most (78 percent) of all construction. Nonbuilding construction highways, bridges, sewers, utilities, blast furnaces and other construction work was valued at $7 billion, or about 22 percent. The report shows 1997 state-level data on the number of establishments, employment, payroll, value of construction work done, value added, cost of subcontractors and materials, rental costs and capital expenditures. Statistics in these reports are compiled from data collected on census questionnaires. The questionnaires are mailed to a sample of establishments designed to provide reliable estimates for each state and each construction industry. Relative standard errors provide estimates of sampling error. These statistics are also subject to nonsampling error from various sources, such as the inability to identify all cases in the actual universe and classification errors. Steps were taken in all phases of collection, processing and tabulation to minimize the effects of nonsampling error.-X-
