Zack Warren

Over the last few years, not-for-profit employment has expanded rapidly. Employment in not-for-profit establishments increased by over 5 percent in 2 years between 2002 and 2004;¹ over the same period, total private employment increased by less than 1 percent.² Likewise, the number of not-for-profit establishments has increased by more than 36 percent in the last 10 years.³ This rapid employment growth, combined with the unique nature of not-for-profit activities, has generated significant interest in employment patterns of not-for-profit establishments.

Although there are a fair number of statistics relating to the number and type of not-for-profit establishments in the United States, there are surprisingly few employment and wage data on the people who work in this sector. Among the most comprehensive analyses of not-for-profit employment was a study by Lester M. Salamon and S. Wojciech Sokolowski, who detailed the size and urban nature of not-for-profit work and described not-for-profit employment by industry.⁴ This article seeks to further their analysis by identifying the kinds of jobs found in the not-for-profit sector, as well as by comparing the wages of those working for not-for-profits with the wages of those working in for-profit establishments. It also examines differences in occupational staffing patterns between for-profit and not-for-profit establishments within the same industry. This is accomplished by combining data from the 2006 Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics with tax-exempt-status information from the Internal Revenue Service’s Business Master File of the Statistics of Income program.⁵

This excerpt is from an article published in the November 2008 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

Read abstract  Download full article in PDF (477K)

Footnotes
1 Lester M. Salamon and S. Wojciech Sokolowski, “Employment in America’s Charities: A Profile,” Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies Nonprofit Employment Bulletin, December 2006, p. 9.

2 Total private employment 2002–2004 was calculated using “Table 1. Total coverage (UI and UCFE) by ownership: Establishments, employment, and wages, 1997-2006 annual averages,” from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sept. 17, 2007, on the Internet at www.bls.gov/cew/ew06table1.pdf (visited Nov. 24, 2008).

3 Number of Nonprofit Organizations in the United States, 1996 – 2006,” National Center for Charitable Statistics, on the Internet at http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/PubApps/profile1.php?state=US (visited Nov. 24, 2008).

4 Lester M. Salamon and S. Wojciech Sokolowski, “Nonprofit organizations: new insights from the QCEW data,” Monthly Labor Review, September 2005, pp. 21–23.

5 “SOI Tax Stats - Exempt Organizations: IRS Master File Data,” Internal Revenue Service, on the Internet at www.irs.gov/taxstats/charitablestats/article/0,,id=97186,00.html (visited Nov. 24, 2008).

Nonprofit organizations: new insights from QCEW data.—Sept. 2005.

Within Monthly Labor Review Online:
Welcome | Current Issue | Index | Subscribe | Archives

Exit Monthly Labor Review Online:
BLS Home | Publications & Research Papers