Exploring the Economic Insights from the 2022 County Business Patterns Released by US Census Bureau

The U.S. Census Bureau has released the 2022 County Business Patterns (CBP), a yearly collection of economic data organized by industry. Information such as the number of establishments, employment figures, payroll for the first quarter, and annual payroll are included for nearly 1,000 industries based on the 2017 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).

The data is available at various levels including national, state, combined statistical area, metropolitan/micropolitan statistical area, county, congressional district, and ZIP Code. It also provides information for Puerto Rico and the Island Areas at state-equivalent levels.

Users of the CBP data range from federal agencies to private businesses and state and local government offices. Federal agencies use it to track employee trends and concentrations by industry while private businesses analyze market potential and set sales targets based on the information. State and local government offices use it to assess business changes and develop fiscal policies.

The CBP data is sourced from the Business Register, a database maintained by the Census Bureau containing information from both single and multi-establishment employer companies. The data is typically non-survey data sourced from tax returns. CBP datasets from 1986 to the current year are available for download while CBP tables from 2012 onwards can be accessed through data.census.gov