On October 5, 2006, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released estimates of full-time and part-time (FTPT) employment by industry for 1948-97 based on the 1997 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). These employment estimates are consistent with and designed to be used with BEA's estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) by NAICS industry that were released in November 2004 and December 2005.1 As with the GDP by industry estimates, the employment estimates are provided for 65 detailed industries for 1977-97 and for 22 industry groups for 1948-76. With this release, BEA has completed the conversion of its industry series from the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system to NAICS.2
The NAICS industry employment estimates provided in this release are based on extrapolating the published 1998 NAICS industry estimates from BEA's national and industry accounts back to earlier years. For the period 1990-97, the series used for the extrapolation are Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)-based estimates of employment by NAICS industry prepared by BEA's regional economic accounts program. The employment estimates were provided by BLS from its quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program.
For years before 1990, the employment extrapolation was based on procedures that are very similar to those used for the historical GDP-by-industry estimates. SIC-based employment estimates were converted to a NAICS basis with a detailed SIC-NAICS employment concordance developed for 1997. This concordance was extrapolated back to earlier years using detailed employment data. These extrapolated concordances capture changes over time in the share of an SIC industry's employment that is allocated to a NAICS industry.
On September 26, 2006, BEA released estimates of state earnings by NAICS industry for 1990-2000 that also incorporate the BLS QCEW data.3 BEA's estimates of employment and employee compensation from its national and industry accounts for 1998-2000 will be revised to incorporate the BLS QCEW data in the next comprehensive revisions of the National Income and Product Accounts and the GDP-by-industry accounts.
1 For the estimates for 1987-97, see Robert E. Yuskavage and Yvon H. Pho, "Gross Domestic Product by Industry for 1987-2000," Survey of Current Business 84 (November 2004): 39-41. For the estimates for 1947-86, see Robert E. Yuskavage and Mahnaz Fahim-Nader, "Gross Domestic Product by Industry for 1947-86: New Estimates Based on the North American Industry Classification System," Survey of Current Business 85 (December 2005): 70-84.
2 Estimates of net capital stock, depreciation, and investment by NAICS industry were released on Apri 18, 2006. For more information, see /national/FA2004/index.asp.
3 See /bea/newsrel/sqpi_newsrelease.htm.