New York County (Manhattan), N.Y., had the highest payroll per employee among the nation’s largest counties, while Los Angeles County, Calif., had the highest number of business establishments, according to 2003 County Business Patterns, released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

     The updated report contains a variety of information on businesses in more than 1,000 industries from the national level down to states and more than 3,100 counties. It provides data on the number of establishments, number of employees and quarterly and annual payroll based on the 2002 North American Industry Classification System.

     Businesses and planners use the data to study economic activity and analyze economic changes over time in small areas.

     The report provides information such as:

• Nation-leading Los Angeles County, Calif., had 235,085 businesses, with Cook, Ill., second at 127,727, followed by New York, N.Y., at 103,313. (See Table. Excel)

• Los Angeles County businesses employed 3.8 million workers with annual payrolls totaling $147.4 billion. Cook had 2.4 million workers with a payroll of $102.2 billion, while New York’s 2.0 million employees earned $147.7 billion in 2003.

• Among the nation’s most populous counties, New York, N.Y., businesses had the highest average annual payroll per employee at $73,032, while the average for workers in Riverside, Calif., was $28,809.

• A sampling of the 50 most populous counties across the United States shows average payrolls per employee at $45,282 in Hennepin, Minn; $35,835 in Franklin, Ohio; $32,009 in Clark, Nev.; and $30,452 in Bexar, Texas.

     The data in today’s report cover such important issues as small business growth, average employee wages and geographic concentration of industries across the nation. County business data have been published annually since 1964 and at irregular intervals dating back to 1946. Related products also include information for metropolitan statistical areas and data aggregated by five-digit ZIP code areas. All products will be available on CD-ROM later this year. The Census Bureau will also release a similar report for Puerto Rico later this year.

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The data were derived from Census Bureau reports and administrative records of other federal agencies. The comparability of the 2003 and 2002 County Business Patterns data may be affected by changes in the industry codes and state and county geographic codes. The Census Bureau updates the North American Industry Classification System codes and physical location information for millions of businesses every five years as part of the economic census. Quality-assurance procedures are applied to all phases of collection, processing and tabulation to minimize errors. The data are subject to error from miscoding and estimation for missing or misreported data.

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