Employment

All data sources are from the American Community Survey unless otherwise noted.

Methodology

American Community Survey Data

While the ACS is not always the best source for employment data, it provides interesting information for small geographies that other sources don’t cover.

From the Census: Why We Ask: Employment Status

From the Census: Why We Ask: Industry, Occupation, and Class of Worker

From the Census: Why We Ask: Work Status Last Year

Sample Survey Questions on this Topic

Employment Status

When talking about employment status, the Census Bureau divides the population 16 years and older into two categories: in the labor force or not in the labor force. People who have never worked or who are retired are not in the labor force. People who are not currently working but have recently and would like to work are considered in the labor force, but unemployed. People who are actively working are described as either in the civilian labor force or in the armed forces. This is probably easier understood when shown as a set of nested lists:

• Total:
  • In labor force:
    • Civilian labor force:
      • Employed
      • Unemployed
    • Armed Forces
  • Not in labor force

The simplest presentation of this data is in table B23025 which has simply those columns. For finer detail, table B23001 breaks down those respondents into male and female and then within the sexes, into age brackets of varying sizes. In the ACS 1-year release, a collapsed version of this table, C23001 has the same basic structure but fewer distinct age brackets.

Employment status is reported by sex, age and race in the B23002 and C23002 series of tables. Neither of these tables appear in a non-racial tabulation, but each is tabulated in the standard nine subsets for race and hispanic origin. The C23002 tables have only two age brackets: 16-64 and 65 and older. The C23002 tables are available for all releases, but the B23002 table is only offered in the ACS 1-year release.

There are dozens more tables which cross tabulate employment status with other characteristics, such as education, poverty status, disability status, veteran status and more.

In the table below, some table names have been simplified. Employment status is always only for the population 16 years and over. Questions about work status and hours worked are for the last 12 months. References to the respondent's "own children" are for children under 18 years.

Industry / Occupation / Class of Worker

The ACS provides some pretty detailed information about the specific kinds of work Americans do. These tables are gathered together in a series whose table codes begin with B24 and C24.

Occupation

The "detailed occupation" tables include over 500 occupations, but are only available summarized at the national level. Below the national level, begin with tables B24010 and B24020 to analyze the work people do in a place. In these and the other occupation tables, occupations are organized into five high level groups:

• Management, business, science, and arts occupations
• Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations
• Production, transportation, and material moving occupations
• Sales and office occupations
• Service occupations

In different tables, these groups are subdivided to varying depths. For B24010/B24020, there are a total of 150 columns for each of male and female workers. These columns are nested so that some values represent the total of columns below them. If you do your own summing, Be careful not to double-count by mixing columns of different depths.

Important: the ACS 5-year release does not include the B24010/B24020 tables. To analyze occupation data for smaller geographies, you must use the C24010/C24020 tables. These have the same five high level groups, but are broken down into only 35 columns for each of male and female workers.

Industry

In addition to the work Americans do, the ACS counts the industries in which they do that work. In these tables, there are 13 top level categories for industries. As with occupations, be careful not to double-count if you are doing your own summing.

These are the 13 top-level industries:

• Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining
• Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services
• Construction
• Educational services, and health care and social assistance
• Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing
• Information
• Manufacturing
• Other services, except public administration
• Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services
• Public administration
• Retail trade
• Transportation and warehousing, and utilities
• Wholesale trade

Class of Worker

These are the tabulation options for "class of worker."

• Private for-profit wage and salary workers:
• Employee of private company workers
• Self-employed in own incorporated business workers
• Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers
• Local government workers
• State government workers
• Federal government workers
• Self-employed in own not incorporated business workers
• Unpaid family workers

In some cross-tabulations, the three classes of government work are collapsed into one. Also, in some cross-tabulations, "Self-employed in own not incorporated business workers" and "unpaid family workers" are combined.

Industry / Occupation / Class of Worker table details

Below is a summary of all the tables that the Census Bureau includes in the "Industry / Occupation / Class of Worker" series. For the following tables, all references to employment are for the civilian population 16 years and older. Median earnings are for the last 12 months in dollars adjusted to the year of the ACS release.

Detailed Occupation Data

As mentioned above, a few tables offer a very detailed breakdown of occupations—over 500 columns. However, data for these tables is only available for the United States as a whole, and not for any smaller geography.