Census Bureau News -- County Business Patterns: 2007

U.S. Business Employers Add 100,000 Establishments in 2007, Census Bureau
Reports

WASHINGTON, July 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- United States businesses with
employees added more than 100,000 establishments in 2007, bringing the total
number to 7.7 million and adding more than 650,000 employees to their
payrolls. Overall, employees of businesses in the United States earned more
than $5 trillion in annual payroll in 2007, up from $4.8 trillion in 2006.

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These economic numbers come from County Business Patterns: 2007, an annual
report that contains data covering establishments with paid employees at the
national and state levels, and in more than 3,100 counties. An establishment
is a single physical location at which business is conducted or services or
industrial operations are performed. The report provides data on the number of
establishments, employees, and quarterly and annual payroll for most of the
1,100 industries identified by the North American Industry Classification
System.

Among the counties with the most establishments, Maricopa, Ariz., added 3,058
establishments; Los Angeles, Calif., added 3,027 establishments; and Orange,
Calif., added 1,363 establishments.

A sampling of the 50 counties with the most employees showed average annual
per-employee payrolls of $79,848 in Santa Clara, Calif.; $55,477 in Fulton,
Ga.; and $53,134 in Hennepin, Minn.

Industry findings:

The number of law offices increased by more than 850 between 2006 and 2007,
bringing the national total to 176,009. California had the most law offices
with 21,417, followed by Florida with 15,612 and New York with 13,460. A
sampling of counties across the United States showed King, Wash., with 1,637
law offices; Clark, Nev., with 1,039; and Wayne, Mich., with 611.

The landscaping services industry added 2,713 locations between 2006 and 2007,
bringing the U.S. total to 93,121. The state with the highest average payroll
per employee in this industry was Rhode Island ($55,595), followed by
Massachusetts ($54,866) and Connecticut ($48,776).

Among counties with the most landscaping establishments, the average annual
payroll per employee in Cook, Ill., was $50,517, while Montgomery, Pa., had an
average annual payroll of $41,584, and St. Louis, Mo., had an average of
$32,360 in 2007.

County Business Patterns excludes self-employed people, employees of private
households, railroad employees, agriculture production workers and most
government employees. Information on businesses without paid employees will be
released this year as part of the Nonemployer Statistics report. Data for
metropolitan statistical areas and five-digit ZIP codes also will be released
this year.

County Business Patterns defines employment as all full- and part-time
employees who were on the payroll during the pay period that includes March
12. Data are obtained from Census Bureau reports and administrative records
from other federal agencies. Quality assurance procedures are applied to all
phases of collection, processing and tabulation to minimize errors. The data
are subject to error from miscoding and estimation for missing or misreported
data. Values associated with each establishment are slightly modified to
protect the confidentiality of the location. Further information about
methodology and data limitations is available at
http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp/methodology.htm.

Editor's note: The report can be accessed at
http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp/index.html.

Detailed tables

Contact: Tom Edwards/Thanos Theodoropoulos
Public Information Office
301-763-3030/763-3762 (fax)
e-mail: pio@census.gov

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

Tom Edwards or Thanos Theodoropoulos, both of the U.S. Census Bureau Public
Information Office, +1-301-763-3030, +1-301-763-3762 (fax), pio@census.gov