2022 Economic Census Concentration of Largest Firms
U.S. Census Bureau / accessed 2026-07-17. Source custody remains attached to every public sector row.
Joined Census sector evidence
Sector Structure Observatory
Compare broad sectors using industry concentration, business entry, employment, and merger-review data. Census and HSR measures keep their own years and populations; unlike measures are not combined into a score.
Source-bounded sector composition
17-sector map
- Area
- 2023 BDS employment
- Coverage
- 133.5M workers
Color1978-2023 employer-firm share change
<= -5.18 pp> -5.18 pp to < -0.05 pp-0.05 pp to +0.05 pp> +0.05 pp to < +5.18 pp>= +5.18 pp
BDS yeararea + color + readout
62Health care22M / 16.5%44-45Retail trade16.1M / 12.0%72Food & accommodation14.6M / 10.9%31-33Manufacturing12.3M / 9.2%56Administrative services11.9M / 8.9%54Professional services10.4M / 7.8%23Construction7.6M / 5.7%52Finance & insurance6.9M / 5.2%48-49Transportation6.5M / 4.8%42Wholesale trade6.2M / 4.7%81Other services5.7M / 4.3%61Education3.8M / 2.8%513.5M / 2.7%71532.4M / 1.8%2221
Selected / NAICS 51 / 2.7% of map areaInformationColor / +0.242 pp / Share gain
- 2022 structure
- 638.2
- median detailed-industry HHI
- 17 / 29 published
- 2017-2022 strict change
- +56.4
- median HHI-point change
- 54.5% strict-pair coverage
- 2023 business flows
- 10.578%
- establishment entry rate
- BDS broad-sector rate
- FY2024 merger review
- 263
- acquired-entity transactions
- 13.3% / rank 2 of 19
012017 Economic Censusstrict historical anchor
022022 Economic Censuscurrent concentration distribution
032023 Business Dynamicsestablishment and job flows
04FY2023-FY2024 HSRacquired-entity composition
Four families, never one score.
BDS sector transition
How did the represented economy redistribute?
1978-2023 employer-firm share across the same 17-sector overlap, with every annual denominator recalculated from published BDS counts.- Window
- 1978-2023
- Direction
- 10 gain / 6 loss
- Represented total
- 3.6M to 5.6M
- Total count change
- +56.6%
Exact sector ledger
Both anchors, count change, and percentage-point redistribution
| Rank | Sector | 1978 count | 1978 share | 2023 count | 2023 share | Count change | Share change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Professional, scientific, and technical servicesNAICS 54 | 234,831 | 6.549% | 735,652 | 13.101% | +213.3% | +6.552 pp |
| 2 | Administrative and support and waste management and remediation servicesNAICS 56 | 109,271 | 3.048% | 318,217 | 5.667% | +191.2% | +2.619 pp |
| 3 | Health care and social assistanceNAICS 62 | 314,122 | 8.761% | 631,402 | 11.245% | +101.0% | +2.484 pp |
| 4 | Accommodation and food servicesNAICS 72 | 286,236 | 7.983% | 515,539 | 9.181% | +80.1% | +1.198 pp |
| 5 | Transportation and warehousingNAICS 48-49 | 90,397 | 2.521% | 198,284 | 3.531% | +119.3% | +1.010 pp |
| 6 | Arts, entertainment, and recreationNAICS 71 | 42,730 | 1.192% | 118,288 | 2.107% | +176.8% | +0.915 pp |
| 7 | Educational servicesNAICS 61 | 30,454 | 0.849% | 93,509 | 1.665% | +207.0% | +0.816 pp |
| 8 | Real estate and rental and leasingNAICS 53 | 169,328 | 4.722% | 292,635 | 5.212% | +72.8% | +0.490 pp |
| 9 | ConstructionNAICS 23 | 426,471 | 11.894% | 684,600 | 12.192% | +60.5% | +0.298 pp |
| 10 | InformationNAICS 51 | 38,476 | 1.073% | 73,823 | 1.315% | +91.9% | +0.242 pp |
| 11 | UtilitiesNAICS 22 | 5,693 | 0.159% | 6,243 | 0.111% | +9.7% | -0.048 pp |
| 12 | Other services (except public administration)NAICS 81 | 430,409 | 12.004% | 669,776 | 11.928% | +55.6% | -0.076 pp |
| 13 | Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extractionNAICS 21 | 19,132 | 0.534% | 15,461 | 0.275% | -19.2% | -0.259 pp |
| 14 | Finance and insuranceNAICS 52 | 146,410 | 4.083% | 214,433 | 3.819% | +46.5% | -0.264 pp |
| 15 | Wholesale tradeNAICS 42 | 236,099 | 6.585% | 246,895 | 4.397% | +4.6% | -2.188 pp |
| 16 | ManufacturingNAICS 31-33 | 264,012 | 7.363% | 220,696 | 3.930% | -16.4% | -3.433 pp |
| 17 | Retail tradeNAICS 44-45 | 741,500 | 20.680% | 579,638 | 10.323% | -21.8% | -10.357 pp |
Cross-domain sector workspace
Structure, change, business flows, and federal review by sector
17 of 17 sectors in the current sliceDescriptive evidence plane
Median HHI and Entry rate
Selected sectorNAICS 51 / Information
- Median HHI
- 638.2
- Entry rate
- 10.578%
- 2023 employment
- 3.5M
Source custody and method
Four bounded evidence families.
The sector code is the bridge. Concentration levels, strict historical changes, business flows, and HSR acquired-entity composition remain separate measures with separate denominators.
2017 Economic Census Concentration of Largest Firms
U.S. Census Bureau / accessed 2026-07-18. Source custody remains attached to every public sector row.
2023 Business Dynamics Statistics
U.S. Census Bureau / accessed 2026-07-19. Source custody remains attached to every public sector row.
Hart-Scott-Rodino Annual Reports, FY2023 and FY2024
Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice. Acquired-entity sector counts, release shares, source wording, and review-stage aggregates retain each report's own published universe.
Each row joins 2022 six-digit Economic Census concentration-distribution summaries, strict 2017-2022 same-code and same-label industry history, and 2023 Business Dynamics Statistics sector flows. These vintages and universes differ, so associations are descriptive rather than same-period or causal. Sector medians are not sector HHI values, legal antitrust markets, liability findings, or composite competition scores.
BDS sectors outside the joined concentration universe: 11 Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting; 55 Management of companies and enterprises.
This bridge joins only the exact broad-sector NAICS code published by both sources. The 2022 Economic Census sector row measures economy-wide employer-firm structure, while each HSR sector aggregate sums the release's published acquired-entity 3-digit rows. The shared code does not define a legal antitrust market, measure a sector merger rate, establish competitive harm, or score agency performance.