An establishment is a single physical location at which business is conducted or services or industrial operations are performed. It is not necessarily identical with a company or enterprise, which may consist of one or more establishments. When two or more activities are carried on at a single location under a single ownership, all activities generally are grouped together as a single establishment. The entire establishment is classified on the basis of its major activity and all data are included in that classification.
Establishment-size designations are determined by paid employment in the mid-March pay period. The size group "1 to 4" includes establishments that did not report any paid employees in the mid-March pay period but paid wages to at least one employee at some time during the year.
Establishment counts represent the number of locations with paid employees any time during the year. This series excludes governmental establishments except for wholesale liquor establishments (NAICS 4228), retail liquor stores (NAICS 44531), Federally-chartered savings institutions (NAICS 522120), Federally-chartered credit unions (NAICS 522130), and hospitals (NAICS 622).
Total payroll includes all forms of compensation, such as salaries, wages, reported tips, commissions, bonuses, vacation allowances, sick-leave pay, employee contributions to qualified pension plans, and the value of taxable fringe benefits. For corporations, it includes amounts paid to officers and executives; for unincorporated businesses, it does not include profit or other compensation of proprietors or partners. Payroll is reported before deductions for Social Security, income tax, insurance, union dues, etc. First-quarter payroll consists of payroll during the January-to-March quarter.
Paid employment consists of full- and part-time employees, including salaried officers and executives of corporations, who are on the payroll in the pay period including March 12. Included are employees on paid sick leave, holidays, and vacations; not included are proprietors and partners of unincorporated businesses.
The quinquennial economic censuses are the primary source for industry and geography classifications. The annual Company Organization Survey, Annual Survey of Manufactures, Current Business Surveys, and other Census Bureau programs provide regular updates.
Additional sources for assigning industry classifications are the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These sources provide industry classification information for new businesses and businesses not canvassed in the Census Bureau programs. Establishments without sufficient industry information are tabulated in the "unclassified establishments" group.
The industry titles used throughout this series are the short NAICS titles; complete descriptions are contained in the manual entitled North American Industry Classification System: United States, 1997.
The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) replaces the U.S. Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. NAICS is an industry classification system that groups establishments into industries based on the activities in which they are primarily engaged. County Business Patterns is tabulated on a NAICS basis starting in 1998.
Most geography codes are derived from the physical location address reported in Census Bureau programs. The Internal Revenue Service provides supplemental address information. Those employers without a fixed location within a state (or of unknown county location) are included under a "statewide" classification at the end of the county tables. This incomplete detail causes only slight understatement of county employment. The independent cities in Virginia, and the cities of Baltimore, MD; Carson City, NV; and St. Louis, MO, are treated as separate counties.
The comparability of data with previous County Business Patterns series may be affected by the following definitional changes:
Definitional and coverage differences may affect the direct comparison of 1997 Economic Census and County Business Patterns data. Definitions of an establishment, employment, and payroll are detailed in the introductory text of each publication.
The 1997 Economic Census generally uses respondent reported data. County Business Patterns uses administrative record data for small establishments. Although efforts are made to resolve significant differences in the data, differences are known to exist.
Some large companies report different activities at the same location as separate profit centers. County Business Patterns treats each profit center as a separate establishment. The 1997 Economic Census may combine the profit centers into one establishment. This results in establishment count differences.
In accordance with U.S. Code, Title 13, Section 9, no data are published that would disclose the operations of an individual employer. The number of establishments in an industry classification and the distribution of these establishments by employment-size class are not considered to be disclosures, so this information may be released even though other information is withheld from publication.
All data are tabulated from universe files and are not subject to sampling errors. However, the data are subject to nonsampling errors. Nonsampling errors can be attributed to many sources: inability to identify all cases in the universe; definition and classification difficulties; differences in interpretation of questions; errors in recording or coding the data obtained; and estimation of employers who reported too late to be included in the tabulations and for records with missing or misreported data.
The accuracy of the data is determined by the joint effects of the various
nonsampling errors. No direct measurement of these effects has been obtained;
however, precautionary steps were taken in all phases of collection, processing,
and tabulation to minimize the effects of nonsampling errors.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Last Revised: Wednesday, 12-Sep-2001 16:24:13 EDT
