What People Do for a Living -- U.S. SuperSector Analysis
Whenever I travel across the country, wanting to know what people in each locale do for a living is a constant. Answering the question of what type of work people do defines a community from an economic perspective. The various types and numbers of jobs from one community to the next can be dramatically variable and diverse.
Fortunately the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has created a job description framework known as SuperSectors allowing a general categorization of job types. The is a segment of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), which “…..is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy.”
The following table shows the total of number jobs (thousands) for each of the nine SuperSectors as of the end of January 2020. Other metrics include the percentage of total jobs and respective changes for each SuperSector in the past 12-months and five years. As these metrics are based on non-seasonally adjusted data, they may vary slightly from seasonally adjusted data which are more commonly referenced when describing the job market. In the latest 12-months, for example, government jobs made up 15 percent of all employment, versus 15.8 percent a year ago. A total 167,000 new government jobs were created in the 12-months ending January 2020, and 722,000 in the past five years.
The following outline provides a more refined view of several of the nine SuperSectors categorizing employment included in each of these broad categories.
Employment Supersectors
Total Nonfarm
Mining and Logging (includes oil and gas extraction)
Construction
Manufacturing
Trade, transportation, and utilities
Information
- Publishing industries, except Internet
- Motion picture and sound recording industries
- Broadcasting, except Internet
- Telecommunications
- Data processing, hosting and related services
- Other information services
- Internet publishing and broadcasting and web search portals
Financial Activities
- Finance and insurance
- Securities, commodity contracts, investments, and funds and trusts
- Real estate and rental and leasing
- Rental and leasing services
- Lessors of nonfinancial intangible assets
Professional and Business Services
- Professional and technical services
- Legal services
- Accounting and bookkeeping services
- Architectural and engineering services
- Specialized design services
- Computer systems design and related services
- Management and technical consulting services
- Scientific research and development services
- Advertising and related services
- Other professional and technical services
- Management of companies and enterprises
- Administrative and waste services
- Waste management and remediation services
Education and Health Services
Leisure and Hospitality
- Arts, entertainment, and recreation
- Performing arts and spectator sports
- Museums, historical sites, and similar institutions
- Amusements, gambling and recreation
- Accommodation and food services
Other Services
- Repair and maintenance
- Automotive repair and maintenance
- Personal and laundry services
- Personal care services
- Death care services
- Dry-cleaning and laundry services
- Other personal services
- Pet care services
- Parking lots and garages
- All other personal services, including photofinishing
- Membership associations and organizations
Government
For further details and descriptions of job classifications under the NAICS click https://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/2017NAICS/2017_NAICS_Manual.pdf Added detail can be seen at https://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/sssd/naics/naicsrch?chart=2017
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