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Julius Smith
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Economic Census Shows California Leads Nation
in Plastics Bottle Production
California, Illinois and Ohio accounted for a third of the $6.4 billion
worth of goods shipped by the nation's plastics bottle manufacturers in
1997, according to an Economic Census report released today on the
Internet by the Commerce Department's Census Bureau.
California's manufacturers led all states by shipping $769.1 million
worth of bottles made from various types of plastics. Illinois ($702.4
million) was second, followed by Ohio ($686.1 million). The report shows
data for an additional 26 states.
Nationwide, the plastics bottle-manufacturing industry employed more
than 34,000 people at 467 locations. Almost two in every three of these
jobs were at sites that employed 100 or more people. California, Illinois
and Ohio had the most plastics bottle-manufacturing jobs, with 4,432,
3,757 and 3,705, respectively.
"These data are from the first in a series of several hundred reports on
individual industries in the manufacturing sector from the 1997 Economic
Census," said Census Bureau Associate Director for Economic Programs
Frederick Knickerbocker. "This census marks the premiere of a new
classification system called the North American Industry Classification
System, or NAICS."
NAICS includes data for 79 new manufacturing industries, including
software reproduction, fiber optic cable manufacturing, quick printing and
light and utility vehicle manufacturing.
NAICS replaces the Standard Industrial Classification system begun 60
years ago. The United States developed the new system jointly with Canada
and Mexico, making it easier for the North American Free Trade Agreement
partners to compare statistical data. This system also is easier to
update, allowing economic statistics to keep pace with the nation's
changing economy.
The report released today on the plastics bottle manufacturing industry
shows 1997 national- level statistics on the number of locations,
employment, worker hours, payroll, shipments, value added, material costs,
capital expenditures and inventories. Data on establishment size, products
shipped and materials consumed, as well as statistics for selected states,
also are provided.
The remaining reports will be issued over the next nine months. Each
report will contain information for a different number of states.
Statistics in this report are prepared from data compiled from census
questionnaires or administrative records from other federal agencies and
therefore contain no sampling error. They are, however, subject to
nonsampling errors from various sources, such as the inability to identify
all cases in the actual universe; classification errors; differences in
the interpretation of questions; errors in recording or coding the data
obtained; and estimation of missing or misreported data. Steps were taken
in all phases of collection, processing and tabulation of data to minimize
effects of nonsampling errors.
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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.
