The Service Annual Survey provides data that help to measure America's current economic performance. The Service Annual Survey uses a sample of approximately 72,000 selected service businesses, the Service Annual Survey collects revenue; expenses; e-commerce sales; and, for some industries, exports, inventories, class of customer, and detail product lines based on the North American Product Classification System (NAPCS). The instrument to collect data for the Service Annual Survey is the Annual Services Report.
The government uses the data to determine economic policy; private industry relies on these data for planning and research.
Yes. Your response is required by law. Title 13 of the U.S. Code requires businesses and other organizations that receive the questionnaire(s) to answer the questions and return the report(s) to the Census Bureau. The law also provides that copies retained in your files are confidential and immune from legal process.
Currently the Service Annual Survey covers the following NAICS sectors:
These sectors are designated by NAICS.
NAICS is used to classify a business’ primary activity. It replaced SIC (Standard Industrial Classification). For further information regarding NAICS, you can access the following website: NAICS
I report data in the Quarterly Services Survey (QSS)? Why can’t you sum up the data?
The SAS collects additional data not included on the Quarterly Services Survey , including e-commerce and detailed expense data. Often, companies have final adjustments to their quarterly level that we wouldn't know about without the annual survey.
Because estimates are based on a sample rather than the entire population, the published estimates may differ from the actual, but unknown, population values. In principle, many random samples could be drawn and each would give a different result. This is because each sample would be made up of different businesses who would give different answers to the questions asked. The spread of these results is the sampling variability.
Common measures of the variability among these estimates are the sampling variance, the standard error, and the coefficient of variation (CV). The sampling variance is defined as the squared difference, averaged over all possible samples of the same size and design, between the estimator and its average value. The standard error is the square root of the sampling variance. The CV expresses the standard error as a percentage of the estimate to which it refers. For example, an estimate of 200 units that has an estimated standard error of 10 units has an estimated CV of 5 percent. The CV has the advantage of being a relative, rather than an absolute, measure and can be used to compare the reliability of one estimate to another.
The Census Bureau takes its commitment to confidentiality very seriously. It constantly pursues new procedures, technologies, and methodologies to safeguard individual data. Every person with access to person or business data – from the Director on down – is sworn by Title 13 to protect confidentiality and is subject to criminal penalties if they do not. Tight computer security and strict access and handling procedures are followed.
Service Annual Survey reports are normally published no later than 13 months after the end of the survey year.
A sample revision is the process used to re-design and re-select the samples for many of the Census Bureau’s surveys of the retail, wholesale, and service industries. This process is performed to
The current Service Annual Survey sample was introduced in February 2007 with the release of estimates for reference year 2005.
Sample revisions are performed approximately every 5 to 7 years. During the period for which the samples are used, updates are made on a quarterly basis to reflect changes in the business universe. These updates are designed to account for new businesses (births) and businesses which discontinue operations (deaths). The samples are also updated to reflect mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, splits, and other changes to the business universe.
Service Annual Survey estimates will be based on the new sample effective with the release of estimates for the 2011 reference year in January 2013.
The size of both the new and the current Service Annual Survey sample is approximately 72,000 employer firms.
In most cases, yes. Whenever possible, estimates from different samples have been put on a comparable basis. For a detailed description of the process used to link the estimates from different samples and for specific information on which industry estimates are not comparable, please refer to the methodology section.
NAICS is scheduled to be reviewed every 5 years for potential revisions, so that the classification system can keep pace with the changing economy. Service Annual Survey estimates are currently published on a 2002 NAICS basis. Effective with the release of 2011 estimates in the first quarter of 2013, Service Annual Survey estimates will be published on a 2007 NAICS basis.
The changes between 2002 NAICS and 2007 NAICS that affect industries within the scope of the Service Annual Survey are summarized below.
For a more detailed comparison between the 2002 and 2007 NAICS, please follow the NAICS Concordance Tables below.