The U.S. Census Bureau on Friday released its First Look estimates from the 2022 Economic Census, the government’s official 5-year measure of businesses in the United States.
The Census Bureau’s First Look estimates provide comprehensive business and economic data available at the national, state, and local levels. The estimates serve as the benchmark for current economic measures, such as Gross Domestic Product and Producer Price Index.
The 2022 Economic Census offers foundational information on U.S. businesses and is a primary undertaking for the bureau, according to Nick Orsini, associate director for Economic Programs.
“For this cycle of the economic census, we combined years of experience conducting censuses with machine learning technology to create an adaptive collection instrument that helped respondents quickly and correctly identify their industry, products, and services,” Orsini said in a news release.
“The improved efficiencies this created in data collection resulted in more effective data review that directly contributed to our ability to produce these First Look estimates earlier than we have in the past,” he added.
Overall, the number of establishments with paid employees rose to just over 8 million in 2022, which was up from 7.6 million in 2017 and up from 7.1 million in 2012. Of the 8 million establishments in the U.S. annual payroll accounted for $8.6 trillion across 140 million employees.
New additions to the 2022 Economic Census include the addition of Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry, which were not captured in the census of agriculture. Preliminary estimates for Agriculture and Forestry Support Activities accounted for 14,900 thousand establishments, employing 324,000 workers, generating $59.3 billion in revenue for 2022.
The First Look estimates also included other notable highlights.
The Retail Trade sector (1 million establishments) was the largest of the sectors covered by the economic census. Trailing closely behind Retail Trade were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (976,300 establishments), as well as Health Care and Social Assistance (975,400 establishments).
Between 2017 and 2022, the Transportation and Warehousing sector saw the largest percent increase in the number of establishments (57,000 or 24.2%)
The Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector accounted for the largest growth in payroll, while the Health Care and Social Assistance sector accounted for the most employees.
As for total sales, the First Look estimates show that the Wholesale Trade sector ranked first with $11.6 trillion in revenue, followed by the Manufacturing sector with $7.1 trillion, and Retail Trade with $7.0 trillion.
To view the complete data, click here.
