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November 2008, Vol. 131, No. 11
Occupational employment in the not-for-profit sector
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
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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).
Occupational Employment Statistics
Related Monthly Labor Review articles
Nonprofit organizations: new insights from QCEW data.—Sept. 2005.
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