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2022 Economic Census / NAICS 541715

Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology)

The four largest firms in Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology) accounted for 17.7% of the industry's 2022 sales, value of shipments, or revenue, and its concentration (HHI 117) ranks 484 of 679 detailed industries in the Economic Census. What is HHI?

National employer-firm concentration for this detailed industry, measured from sales, value of shipments, or revenue. Census categories are statistical groupings, not necessarily antitrust markets.

Detailed industryProfessional, scientific, and technical servicesMiddle half

Revenue-based HHI

117.2

541715
03,500
Same-level median 28429th percentile

National rank

#484

of 679 published

Sector rank

#17

of 39 published

Largest 4 firms

17.7%

Share of industry revenue

Revenue

$195.7B

Sales, shipments, or revenue

Employer firms

10.5K

10,504

Employment

669.8K

669,825

Five-year concentration trace

Same code, hierarchy, sector, and label in both Census tables.

Trace relative position
2017 HHI108.9
2022 HHI117.2
Published change+8.3
Open history profile
Industry profileResearch and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology)Detailed industry · HHI 117.2 · CR4 17.7%

  • GeographyUnited StatesNational firm totals
  • UniverseEmployer firmsFirms with payroll
  • MeasurementRevenue concentrationSales, shipments, or revenue
  • Permitted useScreening onlyNot a legal market definition

Two-vintage industry profile

How this published industry row changed from 2017 to 2022

Inspect six Census measures, publication status, and this row's signed-change position among strict same-level peers.

Strict code + label matchNAICS 541715

Herfindahl-Hirschman Index / HHI points

+8.3 pts+7.6% from 2017

Same-level change rank

#249 of 54354.2th percentile
2017 Economic Census108.9
2022 Economic Census117.2
National rank
#249 of 543
Sector rank
#13 of 32
National coverage
543 of 789
Sector coverage
32 of 46

Comparison evidence

The NAICS code, hierarchy depth, sector, and label are identical in both Census tables.

Open exact change plane Exact history JSONExact history CSV2022 industry record
2017 source 2022 source
Five-year deltas are published only for rows whose NAICS code and industry label are identical in the 2017 and 2022 Census tables. This strict match is a conservative screening rule, not an official NAICS concordance or evidence of causation. Revenue changes are nominal and are not adjusted for inflation.

Census formation and sector context

The broader Professional formation environment

60 monthly observations for parent sector NAICS 54; none are assigned to this narrower industry.
Parent-sector context
Business Applications
81,366
Jul 2026 monthly count
Application annual change
+27.7%
Same month one year earlier
U.S. application share
14.1%
Share of national applications
High-propensity mix
21.0%
17,075 applications
Projected formations
5,170
Modeled four-quarter source projection
Establishment entry rate
12.5%
2023 annual BDS rate

Monthly source trajectory

Applications and high-propensity applications

Aug 2021 to Jul 2026
Business ApplicationsHigh-Propensity Business Applications
Sixty-month business application trajectory for Professional, scientific, and technical servicesBusiness Applications and the high-propensity subset share one count axis. The chapter describes the selected industry's broader parent sector.100K75K50K25K0Aug 2021Nov 2022Feb 2024May 2025Jul 2026
890,201 applications / latest 12 months200,570 high-propensity / latest 12 months

Source clocks

Four releases, three measurement systems

Business Formation Statistics
2026-07
monthly applications and projected formations
Business Dynamics Statistics
2023
annual employer-establishment flows
Economic Census structure
2022
median across detailed-industry HHI rows
Strict concentration history
2017-2022
same-code and same-label detailed pairs
Source custody
Broader-sector boundary

Every formation and business-dynamics reading in this chapter describes the broader Professional, scientific, and technical services sector (NAICS 54), not Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology) (NAICS 541715) by itself. This atlas joins only exact broad-sector NAICS contracts across three separate Census systems: monthly Business Formation Statistics, annual Business Dynamics Statistics, and Economic Census industry structure. The release clocks, populations, denominators, and measures remain distinct. Positions are descriptive context, not composite competition scores, causal estimates, legal antitrust markets, or evidence that applications, entry, concentration, and competitive effects are interchangeable.

BLS labor and payroll context

The broader Professional services labor environment

The parent NAICS 54 bridge supplies context only; no reading is assigned to this narrower industry.
Parent-group context
Job openings
5.5%
Jun 2026 JOLTS rate
Hires
4.8%
Jun 2026 JOLTS rate
Quits
2.2%
Jun 2026 JOLTS rate
Layoffs + discharges
2.2%
Jun 2026 JOLTS rate
All employees
22.5M
22,518 thousand payroll jobs
Weekly hours
36.7
+0.3 hrs from year earlier
Hourly earnings
$45.68
+2.9% from year earlier

JOLTS worker flows

Openings and quits on native rate scales

Jul 2021 to Jun 2026
Job openings rateQuits rate
Sixty-month JOLTS openings and quits ratesJob openings and quits rates for the mapped Professional and business services source group. The measures keep their published denominators and are not a labor-market power score.10.0%7.5%5.0%2.5%0.0%Jul 2021Oct 2022Jan 2024Apr 2025Jun 2026
-0.1 pp openings / year earlier+0.3 pp quits / year earlier

CES payroll context

Payroll jobs and nominal earnings, indexed

Aug 2021 = 100
Payroll jobsHourly earnings
Sixty-month CES payroll jobs and hourly earnings indexesPayroll jobs and nominal average hourly earnings for the mapped Professional and business services source group, each independently indexed to 100 in the first displayed month. Native levels remain in the readouts.13012111310495Aug 2021Nov 2022Feb 2024May 2025Jul 2026
+0.5% payroll jobs / year earlier+2.9% nominal earnings / year earlier

Declared classification bridge

One profile, two source-owned industry groups

Selected Census parent
NAICS 54
Professional, scientific, and technical services
JOLTS group
540099
Professional and business services
CES supersector
60
Professional and business services
Mapped Census sectors
2
54, 56

Independent release clocks

Two monthly systems, no merged series

JOLTS worker flows
2026-06
60 displayed months · latest preliminary
CES payroll context
2026-07
60 displayed months · latest preliminary
Source custody
Parent-group boundary

Every JOLTS and CES reading in this chapter describes the broader Professional and business services and Professional and business services BLS groups mapped through parent sector NAICS 54, not Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology) (NAICS 541715) by itself. JOLTS industry rates describe national labor demand and worker-flow activity in broad BLS industry groups. They do not measure employer concentration, monopsony power, wages, bargaining power, job quality, local labor-market conditions, worker substitutability, a legal labor market, or the competitive cause of a change. The job openings rate uses employment plus openings as its denominator. Hires, quits, and layoffs and discharges use employment. Rates may be compared across published industry groups within the same measure, but different measures must not be added together or treated as a common flow balance. CES employment, hours, and earnings describe national payroll jobs and establishment averages in broad private-industry groups. They do not measure unique workers, vacancies, employer concentration, monopsony power, bargaining power, job quality, a local or occupational labor market, a legal antitrust market, or the competitive cause of a change. All-employee hourly earnings are current-dollar averages and are not adjusted for inflation. Changes can reflect shifts in industry and worker composition. Employment is reported in thousands of payroll jobs, so multiple jobholders may be counted more than once. Compare industries only within the same published measure; do not add or ratio the three measures into a common score. The two releases remain separate and are not combined into a labor-market, monopsony, competition, welfare, or causal score.

BEA industry output context

The broader Professional services output environment

Parent NAICS 54 supplies context only; no BEA value is assigned to this narrower industry.
Parent-sector context
GDP share
8.1%
2025 current-dollar composition
Real growth
+5.2%
2026-Q1 annualized BEA convention
Growth contribution
+0.41 pp
2026-Q1 contribution to real GDP growth
Real quantity index
160.3
2026-Q1 / 2017=100
Current value added
$2.58T
2026-Q1 seasonally adjusted annual rate

Annual composition trajectory

Share of current-dollar GDP

1997-2025
Professional services annual share of current-dollar GDPBEA value-added share from 1997 through 2025. This is an accounting composition measure, not a market share.9.0%8.0%7.0%6.0%5.0%19972004201120182025
5.8%1997+2.3 pplong-run shift8.1%2025
Source custodyU.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis / 2026-06-25GDP by Industry, value-added tablesOfficial BEA releaseAccess reviewed 2026-08-15
Parent-sector boundary

Every BEA reading in this chapter describes parent sector Professional, scientific, and technical services (NAICS 54), not Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology) (NAICS 541715) by itself. No value is allocated to the narrower industry. BEA value added measures an industry's contribution to GDP. It is not sales, gross output, profit, a markup, market share, concentration, a legal antitrust market, or evidence of competitive harm or causation. Current-dollar value-added shares reflect both prices and quantities. Real value added uses chained 2017 dollars and is suitable for growth comparisons, but chained-dollar industry components are not additive. Quarterly levels are seasonally adjusted at annual rates, and quarterly growth and contribution measures retain BEA's published annualized convention. The BEA table contains nested industries, cross-industry aggregates, and addenda. Only the 20 major-industry rows form the composition view; summing those rows with their children, parent aggregates, or addenda would double count activity.

BEA domestic production requirements

Production industries inside the broader Professional, scientific, and technical services sector

Parent NAICS 54 supplies a classification directory only; no requirement coefficient is assigned to this narrower profile.
Sector directory only
BEA lines in scope
3
inside NAICS 54
Annual matrices
28
1997-2024
Raw matrix cells
5,964
retained without aggregation
Net requirement
Not constructed
not additive across buyer columns
Own requirement
Not constructed
no sector diagonal constructed

Published production directory

3 BEA industries map to this parent sector

5411Legal services5415Computer systems design and related services5412OPMiscellaneous professional, scientific, and technical services
Source custodyU.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis / 2025-09-25Input-Output Accounts, domestic requirements tablesOfficial BEA tablesAccess reviewed 2026-08-15
Directory boundary

This chapter is a directory of 3 BEA summary industries classified inside parent sector Professional, scientific, and technical services (NAICS 54). No coefficient is averaged, summed across buyer columns, or allocated to Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology) (NAICS 541715). A domestic total-requirements coefficient reports the U.S. output required from the supplier-row industry, directly and indirectly, per dollar of output delivered to final use by the buyer-column industry. It is not observed spending, a contract, a firm supplier link, market share, concentration, a legal antitrust market, competitive harm, or causation. Rows are supplying industries and columns are buyer industries delivering output to final use. Reading down a buyer column traces upstream requirements; reading across a supplier row traces the industries whose final-use output requires that supplier. BEA requirements tables use fixed input structures, constant returns to scale, and no input substitution. Coefficients are average, ex-post industry relationships; domestic import adjustments are estimated and do not identify firm-specific sourcing. Diagonal values include an industry's own direct and indirect requirements. Published negative coefficients are retained as accounting adjustments and must not be ranked as positive supply requirements.

Firm concentration ladder

How much revenue the largest firms hold

Each rung widens the group of largest firms included in the Census concentration ratio.

CR4Four largest firms17.7%
CR8Eight largest firms25.3%
CR20Twenty largest firms37.5%
CR50Fifty largest firms49.5%

Same-level benchmark

Position in the hierarchy

MeasureThis rowMedian
HHI117.2284
CR417.7%30.6%
Revenue$195.7B$14.5B
Firms10.5K1.2K

HHI distance from median

-166.8

NAICS hierarchy

Move up or down the classification tree

Level 6 of 6
54 Professional, scientific, and technical services541 Professional, scientific, and technical services5417 Scientific research and development services54171 Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences541715 Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology)

Direct child categories

This is the most detailed six-digit category.

Reciprocal fingerprint network

Position in the national industry graph

A link appears only when both industries rank one another among their three nearest complete Census fingerprints across all six published measures.

2022 · all-six lens · mutual top 3
Mutual degree
3
reciprocal 2022 links
Component reach
6
component-33
Link mix
1 same / 2 cross
same-sector / cross-sector
Graph coverage
679/899
673 reciprocal edges
2022 ego networkLines are reciprocal top-three links541715
5417155613202.3 pts5416112.6 pts4244903.3 pts
Selected industrySame sectorCross-sector

Current reciprocal ledger

3 retained graph neighbors

561320Temporary help servicesCross-sector / NAICS 56 · six shared measures2.3 pts541611Administrative management and general management consulting servicesSame sector · six shared measures2.6 pts424490Other grocery and related products merchant wholesalersCross-sector / NAICS 42 · six shared measures3.3 pts

Fixed-cohort network change

2017 to 2022 reciprocal link turnover

Both graphs use the same 543 complete strict-match industries. The fixed-cohort 2022 degree can differ from the larger current snapshot above.

TransitionPartly retainedPartial
Mutual degree2 → 2net 0
Component19 → 11net -8 nodes
Neighbor retention50.0%1 of 2 retained
Turnover21 added / 1 removed
Retained1
Added1
Removed1
Open selected network2022 reciprocal graphOpen turnover cohortPartly retainedFiltered network JSONNAICS 541715Download network CSVOne-row graph packet

Turnover classes describe reciprocal graph states, not economic entry, exit, stability, or structural transformation. Connected and isolated refer only to the selected top-three fingerprint graph. Every class is derived from retained, added, and removed links under the fixed-cohort network-change contract.

Nearest structural neighbors

Comparable fingerprints across the economy

Smallest mean national-percentile gaps across HHI, CR4, CR8, revenue, employment, and employer firms, using the same published dimensions as this row.

561320Temporary help servicesCross-sector / NAICS 56 · 6 dimensions2.3 pts541611Administrative management and general management consulting servicesProfessional, scientific, and technical services · 6 dimensions2.6 pts424490Other grocery and related products merchant wholesalersCross-sector / NAICS 42 · 6 dimensions3.3 pts423120Motor vehicle supplies and new parts merchant wholesalersCross-sector / NAICS 42 · 6 dimensions3.5 pts484121General freight trucking, long-distance, truckloadCross-sector / NAICS 48 · 6 dimensions3.6 pts
Open the economy-wide spaceOpen the full structure neighborhoodOpen the cross-grain context

Evidence access

Reuse this exact row

Filtered JSONNAICS 541715Download CSVOne-row data packetCensus source archiveEC2200SIZECONCEN

Source citation

U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, EC2200SIZECONCEN: Selected Sectors - Concentration of Largest Firms for the United States, released April 2025.

Industry screen, not market conclusion

A NAICS industry is a statistical classification, not a legally defined antitrust market. Use these national revenue concentration measures to screen where deeper product and geographic market analysis may be warranted, not to infer market power or liability.

Market definition method
Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology) industry concentration (NAICS 541715) | Antitrust Radar