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Firm Data

Statistics of U.S. Businesses, Business Dynamics Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, and Nonemployer

Statistics

| Introduction | SUSB | BDS | BED | Nonemployers |

Introduction

This website provides data and links to data on businesses with and without employees. These are referred

to as “employer firms” and “nonemployer firms.” Employer firms have the lion’s share of receipts and payroll,

while nonemployer firms are far more numerous.

Data on employers and associated business characteristics are available from the Statistics of U.S.

Businesses (SUSB), Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS), and Business Employment Dynamics (BED)

programs and data on nonemployers is available from the Nonemployer Statistics (NE) program. The

programs are annual and from the U.S. Census Bureau, except the Business Employment Dynamics which

is quarterly and from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. SUSB, NE and BED have detailed industry data

while BDS is available at the major industry level. SUSB and NE are available at the county level while BDS

and BED are available at the state level. BED is available with only about a 9 month lag while the other

datasources are available with a lag of a few years. BED's timeliness does come at a cost in terms of

accuracy of firm size compared to the other datasources. BDS is unique in that it has a firm age component.

(Note that BDS data has not been updated since its inception, but it is planned to update the data in the

future).

Detailed data on owner and business characteristics is available from the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of

Business Owners in years ending in 2 or 7 which is part of their Economic Census.

The PDF files present quick views on high level figures and are available in MS Excel files for ease of use.

The tab delimited text files contain more data detail and can easily be copied and pasted into spreadsheet

software (depending on the software, pasting as text instead of html will parse the data into cells).

Public and federal agencies are encouraged to use the data for economic research and regulatory analyses.

The Office of Advocacy defines a small business for research purposes as an independent business having

fewer than 500 employees however, the SBA's Office of Size Standards has industry definitions of small

businesses for government purposes.

Statistics of U.S. Businesses

The Office of Advocacy partially funds the U.S. Census Bureau to produce data on employer firm size in the

SUSB program. In these data, a firm is defined as the aggregation of all establishments owned by a parent

company (within a geographic location and/or industry) that have some annual payroll. A firm may be located

in one or more places.

SUSB’s employer data contain the number of firms, number of establishments, employment, and annual

payroll for employment size of firm categories by location and industry. The employer data consist of static

and dynamic data. Unless otherwise noted, the data are static, that is, they are a "snapshot" of firms at a

point in time. Receipts by employment size of firm are available for 1997 and 2002, and special tabulations

by receipt size of firm are available for the United States. Industries are defined according to Standard

Industrial Classification for 1988 to 1998; and the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)

thereafter.

NAICS uses two time periods to identify U.S., industries. SUSB data for 1998 -2002 uses NAICS 1997; and

SUSB data for 2003 and beyond use NAICS 2002. The SUSB total falls short of the total number of firms

because it excludes farms, and businesses without employees. (Because employment is measured in

March, SUSB does have a firm size category of zero for firms that had no employees in March but had

positive employment at some point during the year.) Farm data are available from other sources.

In recent years, the U.S. Census Bureau has begun using noise infusion for disclosure avoidance. See the

U.S. Census Bureau for a discussion on noise infusion. Note that this site does not differentiate between

disclosure and noise infusion but data directly from Census' does have noise markers.

U.S. Data (Microsoft Excel file of data for the following PDF files plus historic data)

Classified by employment size of firm

Segmenting the economy into 25 size classes, 2007 (PDF file) 1992-2007 (TXT file)

Totals, 1988-2007 (PDF file)

Major industries, 1988-1998, 1998-2007 (PDF files)

All industries by NAICS codes, 2007 (PDF file) (See the Excel file for more size classes)

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All industries by NAICS codes, 2007 (PDF file) (See the Excel file for more size classes)

All industries, 1990-1998, 1998-2002, 2003-2007 (TXT files)

Legal form of organization by major industry, 2007

Classified by other firm size measures

U.S. receipt size of firm by major industry group, 1997, 2002 & 2007 (PDF file)

U.S. all industries data by receipt size, 1997, 2002, 2007 (TXT files)

U.S. annual payroll size of firm by major industry group, 2006 (PDF file)

Dynamic data, by births, deaths, growth, and decline

U.S. births, deaths and job creation, 1989-2007 (PDF file)

U.S. major industries, 2005-2007 (PDF file)

U.S. industry data, 1989-1998, 1998-2006 (TXT files)

State, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) & County (Microsoft Excel file of PDF files plus historic

data)

Classified by employment size of firm

State totals, 1990,1995, 2000-2007 (PDF file) 1988-2007 (TXT File)

State major industry data, 1988-1997, 1998-2002, 2003-2007 (TXT file)

State detailed industry data, 1998-2007 (TXT file)

MSA totals, 1995, 2000-2007 (PDF file)

MSA major industry group data, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, Totals 1993-2007(TXT files)

State MSA and Non-MSA totals, 1995-2007 (TXT file)

Micropolitan Statistical Areas 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 (TXT file)

Counties 2007 (TXT file)

Classified by annual payroll size of firm

State annual payroll size of firm, 2006 (PDF file)

Dynamic data, births, deaths, growth and decline

State totals, 2005-2007 (PDF file)

State MSA/ Non-MSA net changes, 2005-2007 (PDF file)

MSA Births, Deaths and Employment, 2005-2007 (PDF file)

State major industry data 1989-1998, 1998-2007 (TXT files)

State MSA and Non-MSA totals, 1995-2007 (TXT file)

Metro and micropolitan statistical areas, 2003-2007 (TXT file)

Counties (no size data available), 2005-2007 (TXT file)

Footnotes

Annual payroll and receipts are in thousands of dollars.

A firm is defined as an aggregation of all establishments owned by a parent company (within a

geographic location and/or industry) with some annual payroll.

Employment size categories are based on the national employment size of the firm in all

industries. So if a firm has 20 employees in a given industry or location and has 10,000 total

employees, the firm will be in the 500+ employee category for that given industry or location.

The text files are tab delimited text files. You can open the text file with spreadsheet software

(files can be opened in database software but footnotes may be deleted).

Total_Code, 1 = industry division total.

E# represents data for firms with # employees. For multiple year data, the first two characters

represent the year followed by the employment size class.

When disclosure is necessary sometimes ranges are footnoted ([a]=0-19, [b]=20-99, [c]=100-

249, (D)=Disclosure, [e]=250-499, [f]=500-999, [g]=1,000-2,499, [h]=2,500-4,999, [I]=5,000-

9,999, [j]=10,000-24,999, [k]=25,000-49,999, [l]=50,000-99,999, [m]=100,000+).

Information about the process of producing Statistics of U.S. Business (PDF file) is available.

Differences Between Static and Dynamic Data

Static data indicate the importance of firm size classes and the changing importance of firm

size classes over time. Dynamic data indicate the growth of firm size classes over time.

Unless indicated, the tables above refer to static data. Dynamic data were created using a

longitudinal database from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Static firm size data – These data report the number of firms, number of establishments,

employment, annual payroll, and estimated receipts by employment size of firm. Firms are

defined by their employment size of firm at a point in time on a yearly basis. Because firms

can change employment size classes from year to year, static firm size data cannot indicate

the performance of employment size classes. However, comparisons of static firm size data

can illustrate the changing importance of small and large firms by location (U.S., states, or

MSAs), and/or industries.

Dynamic firm size data – These data report the number of and changes in establishments and

employment classified by beginning year employment size of firm (firms remain in these

categories for the end-of-year figures). Changes are caused by the creation of new firms

(original establishments) or new establishments of existing firms (secondary establishments),

deaths of original or secondary establishments, and expansion or contraction of employment

at existing establishments. New firms are classified by their end-of-year firm size. Dynamic

data show the performance of firm employment size categories.

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data show the performance of firm employment size categories.

Dynamic and static figures can differ because dynamic data exclude establishments with zero

employment. Dynamic data's end-of-year figures in firm employment size categories will differ

from static data of the same year because dynamic data's firms are defined by their beginning

year employment size of firm. Dynamic data track firms that change in ownership or legal form

during the year better than static data.

Historical research

Business Dynamics Statistics

BDS contains employer firm data by firm age. The underlying data has age of establishment and age of firm is

determined by the firm's oldest establishment. This can cause an issue when a "newer" firm takes over older

establishments, but in absence of conducting a census on firm age, methodology decisions like this must be

made. See the background paper Business Formation and Dynamics by Business Age: Results from the New

Business Dynamics Statistics by John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin and Javier Miranda for information on the data

program.

This section should be viewed as an introduction to the data program, please visit the U.S. Census Bureau's

Business Dynamics Statistics program for background about the data and their database list for more detailed data

on firm size, state and major industry (includes text files).

Establishments by firm age, 1977-2005 (Microsoft Excel file)

Employment by firm age, 1977-2005 (Microsoft Excel file)

Establishments and employment by employment size of firm, 1977-2005 (Microsoft Excel file)

Business Employment Dynamics

BED contains employer firm data with a focus on employment changes from establishment entry, growth, decline

and exit. Because the data is quarterly, some establishments can close and reopen during the year. Fortunately,

BLS presents the data in two ways to capture the seasonal firms by listing establishment openings (did not exist in

the previous quarter) and establishments births (did not exist in the previous year) and similar classifications for

closings and deaths. See the background paper Measuring job and establishment flows with BLS longitudinal

microdata by Timothy Pivetz, Michael Searson, and James Spletzer for information on the data program.

Recently, the data program added establishment age data.

This section should be viewed as an introduction to the data program, please visit the U.S. Bureau of Labor

Statistics' BED program for background about the data and for more detailed data.

Quarterly establishment births, deaths and associated employment, mid-1992 - 2009

State quarterly establishment births, deaths and associated employment, mid-1992 - 2009 (see Tables 9)

Quarterly net job change by employment size of firm, mid-1992 - 2009 (totals do not match other figures as

some firms do not have firm size identifiers)

Employer firms by employment size of firm, 1993 - 2009

Employment by employment size of firm, 1993 - 2009

Establishment age and survival 1994 - 2009

Nonemployer Statistics (Microsoft Excel file of PDF files)

A nonemployer firm is defined as one that has no paid employees, has annual business receipts of $1,000 or more

($1 or more in the construction industries), and is subject to federal income taxes. The Census Bureau provides

nonemployer business data. According to Census, "Nonemployers account for roughly 3 percent of business

activity [in terms of sales or receipts]. At the same time nonemployers account for nearly three-quarters of all

businesses. Most nonemployer businesses are very small, and many are not the primary source of income for their

owners." See the U.S. Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics for more detailed information and to have the data

presented in html format. The nonemployer section also contains capital expenditure data for both employers and

nonemployers. See the U.S. Census Bureau's Annual Capital Expenditures Survey for more details.

In recent years, the U.S. Census Bureau has begun using noise infusion for disclosure avoidance. See the U.S.

Census Bureau for a discussion on noise infusion. Note that this site does not differentiate between disclosure and

noise infusion but data directly from Census' does have noise markers.

U.S. industry data by NAICS code, 1997-2008 (PDF file)

State totals, 1992,1997-2008 (PDF file)

Capital expenditures for employers and nonemployers, 1996-2008 (PDF file)

For county data, go directly to the U.S. Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics

Download the Adobe Acrobat Reader for PDF Files (If Necessary)

The Adobe Acrobat Reader may be obtained from the Adobe Home Page. Be sure to read the Adobe

Electronic End User License Agreement and any other instructions prior to installing the Adobe

Acrobat Reader on your system. Adobe also offers Accessibility Tools for PDF Documents

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