Start
here
2007 Economic Census
business.census.gov
What's New for '07
Sample '07 forms
Help with your form
Information kit
Latest Results
Census:
2002 -
1997 - 1992
Other:
1998-2008
Questions?
FAQs
Ask Dr. Census
Related sites
NAICS
Bus. Expenses
Island Areas
Commodity Flow
Vehicle Survey
Business Owners Minority/Women
|
|
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) |
Navigation
- How do I navigate the drill-down tables?
- Where can I find the data that are not in drill-down tables?
- How can I find data quickly in a large document?
- How can I quickly navigate a long list in a pull-down menu?
- How can I compare the data for two areas
side-by-side?
- How can I get a list of the places published
within each county?
Downloading data
- How do I export data from drill-down pages
to my spreadsheet?
- How can I export data from a PDF document to
my spreadsheet?
Industries and totals
- Where can I find totals across all industries,
not just the sector-by-sector figures shown in the Economic Census?
- Why don't the NAICS categories within a sector add to sector
totals?
- How can I convert NAICS-based data into the SIC
categories I am familiar with?
Ranking
- Where can I find rankings showing the largest states
or counties?
Data sources beyond the Economic Census
- What sources are available to update the 1997
data shown in these pages?
- How can I get county or metro area data for sectors
not published at that level in the Economic Census.
- Can I get industry data for census tracts, block
groups, American Indian reservations or other small areas shown in
the population census?
- Where can I get data about public sector jobs to complement
the data in the Economic Census?
- Where can I get characteristics of the people working in
an area, like occupation, sex, race, and age?
Company data
- Where can I find data classified by the size of
the company?
- Can I get a list of the companies enumerated
in the Economic Census?
Navigation
- How do I navigate the drill-down tables?
- To navigate to a particular geographic area, use the drop-down
menus in the upper right corner of each page.
- After you select an option, you must click the
GO button next to it. (The use of GO buttons facilitates accessibility
of the data to screen readers for the blind.)
- Down arrows take
you to more detailed data, most often to finer breakdowns of the
industry category shown.
- Underlined industry descriptions (and column headings) take you
to definitions, not additional detail. (Use your browser's back
button to return to the data.)
- A NAICS search is in the upper right corner of US pages only (since
it takes you to US level data.)
- You can enter a word or code. If you don't get
entries, consider shortening your search term. SIC xxxx also works.
- There are 8 types of drill-down tables from the 1997
Economic Census, Nonemployer Statistics
and Statistics
of US Business (by employment size).
Back to top
- Where can I find the data that are not in drill-down tables?
- See the comparison between CD-ROM,
PDF, AFF and drill-down table coverage.
- For statistics missing in drill-downs, like the Industry Series
and Subject Series data, go to the
list of PDFs or to the "data sets" part of
American FactFinder.
Back to top
- How can I find data quickly in a large document?
- If you are looking for a particular character string you think
might be unique in the document, like a geographic area name or
a NAICS code, use your browser's "Find" feature (hit
Control-F or select Edit | Find in this page).
Adobe Acrobat also has a "Find" that works in PDFs (Control-F
or click on the binoculars icon).
- In PDFs with many tables, use the table of contents (frequently
starting on page 5). Find the table you want, note its document
page number, then convert that to a PDF page number by adding
a constant (5 works in most economic census reports). Enter the
PDF page number in the box that says "5 of xx" in the
lower left of the window.
Back to top
- How can I quickly navigate a long list in a pull-down menu?
- In a pull-down menu, type the first character of the entity
you are looking for. In a state menu, typing "W" should
take you straight to Washington, and, even if you are looking
for Wisconsin, you won't have far to go. This technique is especially
important in long menus of counties, metro areas, or ZIP codes.
- Type only one character. If you type WI, your browser will take
you to the W's and then immediately to the I's, so you could end
up with Idaho rather than Wisconsin.
Back to top
- How can I compare the data for two areas side-by-side?
- If you just want to compare a small number of areas side by
side, open a new window in your browser for each area (Control-N
does this in Netscape and Internet Explorer) and resize and reposition
the windows so you can see multiple displays at the same time.
- A more sophisticated ability to display data for multiple areas
is built into American FactFinder's Detailed
Statistics option.
Back to top
- How can I get a list of the places published within each
county?
- 1992 census reports included a convenient hierarchic list of
places within county. Open a
1992 PDF for your state and navigate to table 4. Very few places were
added to the list between 1992 and 1997.
Back to top
Downloading data
- How do I export or download data from the drill-down pages
for manipulation in my spreadsheet?
- If the data you want are on the page you are viewing, do File
| Save As... to your local drive in html format (using
extension .htm or .html). Most spreadsheet programs will read html
files directly, often preserving most formatting features.
- If you want data more extensive than shown on the page you are
viewing
- To download all published industries for employers in a particular
geographic area, click on the American FactFinder logo at the
bottom of the page to go the the AFF Geography Quick Report. At
the top of the page, under "Change Selections", click
on "Other reports" and specify the level of detail you
want, and click on the "OK" button at the far right.
Finally, under "Print/Download", click on "Download"
and continue through the specification of file name and location.
- To download employer data for multiple geographic areas, use
American FactFinder's "Detailed Statistics" option.
Step-by-step
instructions are in the Guide to the Economic Census.
- To download data for one of the data sets not in American FactFinder
(e.g., Comparative Statistics, Nonemployer Statistics, ZIP Code),
get the data on CD-ROM.
Back to top
- How can I export data from a PDF document to my spreadsheet?
- Not easily. Full versions of Acrobat have a text selection
tool (big T) that allows export of text. In exporting tables,
the columns are separated only by spaces, and you can't discriminiate
these breaks from the spaces between hundreds and thousands without
looking back at the pdf. Thus, columnar data exported this way
requires tedious cleanup and parsing before data can be used in
a spreadsheet.
- A better approach is to find the same data in American FactFinder
or CD-ROM and export the data from those sources. Every Economic
Census data set you find in pdf is available on CD-ROM, and FactFinder
includes nearly everything.
Back to top
Industries and totals
- Where can I find totals across all industries, not just
the sector-by-sector figures shown in the Economic Census?
- Data from the 1997 surveys of minority-
and women-owned business enterprises include a "Universe (All
Firms)" line that includes sales, payroll and employment figures
generally comparable to Economic Census breakdowns by sector. These
figures won't match exactly the sum of the 18 sectors because of
slight differences in coverage.
- County Business Patterns, Metropolitan Business Patterns, and
ZIP Code Business Patterns include an industry total. Relative to
the Economic Census, there are modest differences
in coverage.
Back to top
- Why don't the NAICS categories within a sector add to sector
totals?
- The first thing is to understand what is supposed to add up. Theoretically,
any sector (2-digit NAICS) total should equal the sum of component
subsectors (3-digit NAICS), each 3-digit figure should correspond
to the sum of component 4-digits, and so forth. If you add together
NAICS codes at more than one level, you could get a sum greater than
the true total.
- At the same time, below the national level, NAICS
categories are published only when they meet certain criteria that
vary from industry to industry. For example, county or city figures
are shown only for those manufacturing industry categories that have
at least 500 employees. Your detailed figures may not add to higher
level totals because some categories simply aren't shown. (For missing
industries, you may check County Business Patterns, which does not
have publication cutoffs. The first year CBP used NAICS was 1998.)
- Some figures are withheld (replaced with D) to avoid disclosure
of confidential information. Data withheld at one level are still
included in higher level figures. The number of establishments
is never suppressed, so you may be able to confirm additive relationships
with establishment counts that you can't with other figures. In
most places where sales or payroll figures are suppressed, employment
is shown in ranges (e.g., 20-49 employees).
Back to top
- How can I convert NAICS-based data into the SIC categories
I am familiar with?
- It's not easy. Where possible, use 1997 data that are already
presented by SIC in Comparative
Statistics.
- Under half of all 4-digit SIC categories have direct NAICS counterparts
or can be reconstructed by adding whole NAICS codes together. Another
group can be approximated within 3 percent of sales using whole
NAICS codes. You can identify which these are by looking for the
or
symbols in the Bridge Between NAICS and SIC.
For the remaining SIC codes, identified with ,
the bridge data allow you to determine what proportions of particular
NAICS contribute to a given SIC. Note that any proration is subject
to considerable error, and prorating on sales or employment might
give significantly different results.
Back to top
Ranking
- Where can I find rankings showing the largest states in
each industry or counties in each state?
- Industry Statistics Samplers
list states in order of decreasing sales, receipts, or value of
shipments, for any industry.
- Counties are listed in order of decreasing retail sales in
state-by-state links in the Writer's
Toolkit
- American FactFinder allows you to sort output, and thus introduce
ranking in any table. For an example, see the tutorial
in the Guide to the Economic Census.
- Because some area figures are suppressed to avoid disclosure
of confidential information, you can't always assume that the
area with the highest published figure is in fact the largest.
For example, in a ranking of NAICS
713210, Casinos (except casino hotels), many important states
are listed at the bottom because their sales are "D".
Two of these (Connecticut and Mississippi) have more than 10,000
employees, more than the state at the top of the list (Illinois).
In the Industry Statistics Samplers, it is always useful to examine
the size of the "All other states" line, which is derived
by subtracting the sum of all states with published sales from
the national sales figure.
Back to top
Data sources beyond the Economic Census
- What sources are available to update the 1997 data shown
in these pages?
- Click on 1998-2001, here or under
"Latest data" in the lefthand column. County Business
Patterns has annual data on establishments, employment, and payroll
(but no sales or receipts) for the same industries and most of
the geographic areas (except places) shown in the Economic Census.
- Data will be published from the 2002 Economic Census starting
in early 2004. See the schedule
for particular series.
Back to top
- Can I get county or metro area data for sectors not published
at that level in the Economic Census.
Back to top
- Can I get industry data for census tracts, block groups,
townships, American Indian reservations or other small areas shown
in the population census?
- Census 2000 is the only data set that provides employment by
industry for tracts, block groups, townships, Indian reservations,
Congressional Districts, and a variety of other specialized areas.
The only areas shown in the Economic Census are states, counties,
places with 2500 or more inhabitants, metro areas, and ZIP Codes.
- Note that the data in Census 2000 are counts of residents of
the block group employed in that industry. Economic Census data
are counts of persons who work in the specified area. (See the
note on Census 2000 data by place of work under the next question.)
Users should also recognize that Economic Census figures exclude
most self-employed individuals and other "nonemployers".
- Census 2000 detail in SF3 includes employment in each of the
18 NAICS sectors shown in the Economic Census, plus two more outside
the scope of the Economic Census: agriculture, forestry, fishing
and hunting; and public administration. SF3 also includes some
broader sector groupings not shown in the Economic Census. SF4
includes over 80 industry categories, typically corresponding
to 3-digit NAICS, but with some quirky omissions. The SF3 and
SF4 data are shown separately for males and females.
- Economic Census data by ZIP code include only 9 of the 18 sectors,
and, except for the figures shown on the website,
include only counts of establishments by employment-size class
and sales-size class, not actual counts of employees. ZIP Code
Business Patterns is another source of similar statistics by detailed
industry.
Back to top
- Where can I get data about public sector jobs to complement
the data in the Economic Census?
- The Census of Governments, conducted for the same years as the
Economic Census, summarizes employment in state and local governments.
Counts of federal employees by state (even-numbered years only)
theoretically complete the picture. There is a small amount of overlap:
the Economic Census includes state-run liquor stores (retail trade)
and government-owned hospitals (health care and social services).
- A special tabulation of place-of-work data from Census 2000, the
Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP), will produce employment
numbers by sector by county, place, census tract, and traffic zone
of work. The sector totals will include the agriculture and public
administration sectors not touched in the Economic Census, as well
as the public school and social service agency employment not covered
in the Economic Census or County Business Patterns. CTPP 2000 data
are expected in early 2004 on CD-ROM.
- For counties and cities of 100,000 or more population, the Census
2000 Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) special
tabulation shows detailed occupation by industry (generally
3-digit NAICS), including 13 categories outside the scope of the
Economic Census.
Back to top
- Where can I get characteristics of the people working in
an area, like occupation, sex, race, and age?
- The Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) CD-ROMs, for
the areas described above, includes a number of characteristics
of persons working in an area including, for 15 industry sectors,
sex, means of transportation to work, time arriving at work, earnings,
occupation, hispanic origin, and race.
- The Census 2000
County-to-County Worker Flow Files shows workers by county of
work by county of residence.
- The Census 2000 Equal Employment Opportunity
(EEO) special tabulation includes the detailed occupation, race,
hispanic origin and sex of workers by state and county of residence
or worksite, for counties with 50,000 or more population. It also
adds an age dimension (16-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60+) or educational
attainment for counties or cities of 100,000 or more. One table
shows detailed occupation by industry (generally 3-digit NAICS)
for counties and cities of 100,000 or more population.
Back to top
Company data
- Where can I find data classified by the size of the company?
- For a discussion of the various ways of defining small business
and large business, and links to all relevant data sources, see
the company size page.
Back to top
- Can I get a list of the companies enumerated in the Economic
Census?
- No. Title 13 of the U.S. Code prohibits the Census Bureau from
releasing any information that could be linked to a particular company,
including name and address. Various private mailing list vendors
sell lists of companies classified by industry, but none of their
information about individual companies comes from the Census Bureau.
Back to top
Still have questions? Ask Dr. Census. |