LibGuides: Census Data: Business Data

Businesses and Industries

The Census Bureau publishes summary data for business establishments, which are single physical locations where business is conducted or where services or industrial output is performed. The data is summarized by geography and industry. To protect the privacy of individual businesses, geographies or industries where there are few businesses in a given category are not disclosed, or ranges of values are published instead of specific values. Data is available via data.census.gov or directly from the program sites.

Business Patterns
Employees, establishments, and payroll for businesses classified by NAICS are published each year from the Business Register. Data is published for states, Congressional Districts, metropolitan areas, counties, and ZIP Codes. Additional variables are available for large geographies.
Economic Census
Conducted every 5 years in years ending in 2 and 7, data is gathered from counts and surveys and includes data on production and sales that are not included in the CBP. Summarized by industry for states, metro areas, counties, ZIP Codes, and places (incorporated places and municipalities).
Census of Agriculture
Conducted by the USDA on the same cycle as the Economic Census, it captures data on farms, ranches, and fisheries that's omitted in the census datasets. Data is published for states, Congressional Districts, and counties.

NAICS

NAICS Codes
The North American Industrial Classification System is used by the federal government to classify businesses and the labor force into industries. The codes describe industries in an increasing level of detail from broad sectors of the economy down to specific groups of businesses using two to six digit codes. Introduced in 1997, the codes are revised every 5 years.

The example below illustrates how doctor's offices are classified within the 2-digit Health Care and Social Assistance sector (62). At the 6-digit US Industry level there is a distinction between physicians who are mental health specialists (621112) and those who are not (621111). Both are part of the same 4-digit industry group level that includes all physicians (6211), and is distinct from other industry groups like dentists (6212). Both physicians and dentists are part of the same 3-digit Ambulatory Health Care Services subsector level (621), along with other industry groups not depicted.