Covered Employment and Wages for First Quarter 2000, Part 2: North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)
by: Mike Evans, BLS Program Supervisor
tables by: Nancy Brennan, Julie Barnish, Julia Ermolenko, and Mike Evans

"In Part 1, we described first quarter 2000 growth using the Standard Industrial Classification system. In Part 2, we use the North American Industry Classification System. Slight differences in total payroll between Part 1 and Part 2 are attributed to the time lag between data collections."

W yoming average monthly employment grew by 6,746 jobs (3.2%) in the first quarter of 2000 compared with the first quarter of 1999, while total payroll grew 10.9 percent (see Table 1). Job growth was especially robust in the Private sector, which added 5,770 jobs (3.6%), while the Government sector added only 977 jobs. Federal Government increased 5.7 percent in employment (380 jobs) due to the collection of the decennial census. The average weekly wage for Federal Government increased 7.5 percent over the previous year.

The largest job gains came in the Mining sector with 1,662 more jobs (11.0%) than the previous year, due to the increase in oil and natural gas prices. Large increases in employment from the previous year occurred in Accommodations & Food Services (1,196 jobs), Construction (1,095 jobs), and Health & Social Assistance (619 jobs). The Agriculture, Educational Services, and Arts/Entertainment & Recreation sectors also had substantial increases in average monthly employment of 5.8, 9.8, and 10.0 percent, respectively. Manufacturing had the largest decrease in jobs of 587 or 5.6 percent, while only three other sectors, Real Estate & Rental (131 jobs), Utilities (63 jobs), and Management of Companies (40 jobs), lost jobs from the previous year.

Under NAICS, employment changed substantially in the Services sector due to the classification change, so comparison between Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) employment in Services is not possible (see Table 1 and Table 2). Employment actually increased (2.6%) in Manufacturing under the SIC system but decreased under NAICS (-5.6%).¹ Transportation decreased (-0.5%) under the SIC system but increased under NAICS (0.5%). Also, under NAICS, overall employment levels dropped considerably in the Retail Trade, Transportation, and Finance & Insurance sectors, while employment levels increased slightly in the Construction and Wholesale Trade sectors. Finally, Local Government replaces Services as the largest employing sector in the state using the new NAICS classification system (see Table 2).

The Utilities (19.8%) and Information (19.2%) sectors had substantial gains in average weekly wage, and total payroll increased $4,718,688 and $6,023,164, respectively. With the breakout in NAICS, Management of Companies, and Utilities become the highest paid sectors in the Wyoming economy with average weekly wages of $1,655 and $1,168, respectively (see Table 1 and Table 2). The Utilities sector was originally under the Transportation, Communications, & Public Utilities (TCPU) sector in SIC, so the average weekly wage in the Transportation sector of NAICS declined dramatically (see Table 1 and Table 2).

The production-oriented structure of NAICS changes the employment structure of the economy to the point where straight comparisons between SIC and NAICS are difficult. For the next year, we will publish both the SIC and NAICS employment levels to enable the reader to cross-reference and ease the transition to the new classification system.

1 For details on the difference between NAICS and SIC Manufacturing, see related article.

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