In 2023, 8.36 million US business locations employed 139.8 million people and paid $9.56 trillion in annual payroll, an average of $68,342 per employee. Employment was up 3.0% from 2022. Health Care and Social Assistance was the largest sector with 22.1 million employees.
Updated Oct 9, 2026 · data year 2023
Business locations
8.36M
+0.8%vs 2022
Places with paid employees: stores, offices, plants.
2023, United States
Employees
139.8M
+3.0%vs 2022
Paid employees in mid-March, all industries.
2023, United States
Annual payroll
$9.56T
+6.6%vs 2022
Wages and salaries paid during the year.
2023, US dollars
Average pay
$68,342
+3.5%vs 2022
Highest: Information $149,198.
2023, per employee per year
2023. The line shows employees in each year since 2017.
22.1M
employees · +4.2%
16.0M
employees · +0.8%
14.6M
employees · +5.9%
13.5M
employees · -0.9%
12.3M
employees · +1.2%
10.4M
employees · +2.5%
7.66M
employees · +4.0%
6.99M
employees · +2.3%
6.55M
employees · +7.2%
6.24M
employees · +1.5%
5.62M
employees · +2.6%
3.93M
employees · +4.9%
3.86M
employees · +5.3%
3.81M
employees · +4.8%
2.49M
employees · +7.5%
2.39M
employees · +2.5%
667K
employees · +3.4%
553K
employees · +8.9%
161K
employees · -4.3%
13K
employees · +11.3%
Share of all employees in the US. Most values are changed slightly to protect privacy.
Every sector and its subsectors. Each page lists the industries below it, down to the detailed 6-digit codes.
161,334 employees, 2023
553,036 employees, 2023
7,659,459 employees, 2023
12,335,234 employees, 2023
6,236,357 employees, 2023
16,046,207 employees, 2023
6,548,924 employees, 2023
3,809,059 employees, 2023
6,991,623 employees, 2023
2,391,886 employees, 2023
10,401,442 employees, 2023
3,855,720 employees, 2023
13,454,862 employees, 2023
22,063,238 employees, 2023
2,491,408 employees, 2023
14,608,170 employees, 2023
5,616,494 employees, 2023
DataPorium shows how many business locations each US industry has, how many people they employ and how much they pay, from official US government statistics, with 2023 as the newest year. Every industry code, from the 20 sectors down to about 1,000 detailed industries, has its own page with the trend since 2017, the top states and metro areas and the mix of small and large businesses.
A business location (an establishment) is one place where a business works, such as a store, an office or a factory, so a company with ten stores counts ten times. Employees are the people on the payroll in mid-March, and payroll is everything paid to them during the year. The numbers cover most private employers; they leave out the self-employed, most government workers, farm workers on farms and household employees.
Industries follow the official US industry codes (NAICS): 2-digit sectors split into subsectors, industry groups and detailed 6-digit industries. To protect the privacy of single businesses, most values are changed by a small amount before they are published, and a few are withheld; the pages mark the less accurate ones. The same numbers are in the DataPorium API (/industries and /industry-area-stats) and in the Industries section of each state on the Local Economy pages.
8.36 million business locations with paid employees operated in the US in 2023, up 0.8% from 2022. They employed 139.8 million people and paid $9.56 trillion in wages for the year.
Health Care and Social Assistance employed the most people in 2023: 22.1 million, or 15.8% of US private-sector employees. It was followed by Retail Trade (16.0 million) and Accommodation and Food Services (14.6 million).
$149,198 a year per employee in Information was the highest average pay of the 20 sectors in 2023, followed by Management of Companies and Enterprises ($128,997). The lowest was Accommodation and Food Services at $26,914. The average across all industries was $68,342.
+11.3% in Industries not classified was the fastest employee growth of the sectors from 2022 to 2023, ahead of Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction (+8.9%). Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting changed the least (-4.3%).
An industry code (NAICS) groups businesses by what they do. The 2-digit code is the sector, for example 52 Finance and Insurance, and each added digit is a narrower group, down to 6-digit industries such as 522110 Commercial Banking. Every code has its own page here.
Once a year. The numbers for a year are published about a year and a half after it ends; 2023 is the newest year. To protect the privacy of single businesses, most values are changed by a small amount and a few are withheld.