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Irma Harahush
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Manufacturing Jobs, Shipments Up Sharply in Northern Mariana
Islands, Census Bureau Reports in Latest Economic Census
The Northern Mariana Islands saw a boom in manufacturing between 1992
and 1997, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau reported today as it
issued its first 1997 Economic Census results on an outlying area.
Between 1992 and 1997, the number of paid manufacturing employees
doubled (from 6,300 to 13,700), while the annual manufacturing payroll
tripled (from $49 million to $147 million). Manufacturing shipments
increased from $264 million to more than $762 million.
The report, 1997 Economic Census of Outlying Areas:
Northern Mariana Islands Construction Industries, Manufactures, Wholesale
Trade, Retail Trade and Service Industries, is available on the
Internet.
Other highlights include:
- The production of apparel and other textiles led the manufacturing
industry, with 39 establishments and more than 12,000 employees.
- In all, the Northern Mariana Islands had 1,232 businesses engaged in
construction, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, and service
industries.
- Retail establishments employed nearly 5,000 people, with an annual
payroll of $54 million and $570 million in sales.
- Service industries employed more than 7,000 people, with an annual
payroll of $91 million and $440 million in sales and receipts.
- Hotels and motels were the leading employers in the service sector,
with 33 establishments and 2,900 workers.
This was the first time that a mail survey was used to canvass
businesses in the Northern Mariana Islands. Previously, information was
collected using personal visits.
Economic censuses are conducted every five years. The 1997 census was
the last to be based on the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)
system. Future economic censuses will use the new North American Industry
Classification System (NAICS), which identifies over 350 new industries
and 9 new service industry sectors.
Results for Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico will be issued later this year.
Data from economic censuses are used by government, business and
industry as important benchmarks of economic activity.
As in all surveys, economic census data are subject to nonsampling
error, which includes errors of response, processing, nonreporting and
coverage.
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The U.S. Census Bureau, pre-eminent collector and disseminator of timely,
relevant and quality data about the people and the economy of the United
States, conducts a population and housing census every 10 years, an
economic census every five years and more than 100 demographic and
economic surveys every year, all of them evolving from the first census in
1790.
