NAICS 42361 employment data for 2011

Posted by tED magazine on Wednesday, February 08, 2012

By Joe Salimando

Rolled out with the January employment reports last Friday was the first estimate of full-year employment in electrical distribution (NAICS* 42361, Wholesale trade, Electrical equipment and wiring).

According to the annual data (with 2011 still subject to one probably very-small revision), the industry average 139,100 employees in all categories.

That compares with 136,400 in 2010, which was the lowest year for employment in electrical distribution (according to government data) since 1993.

Highest recent figure was 154,500 in 2007. The high for the past 21 years of data came in 2000, when the industry topped 160K for the only time – at 162,900.

Instead of rolling reams of additional numbers at you, let’s take a quick look at several graphs (created via the on-the-fly database thingy at www.bls.gov):.

FIRST: Employment in NAICS 42361 from 1990 to 2011, graphed by month.

SECOND: 2007-11 employment (from the recent very-good year, through 2010, on to what happened recently):

THIRD & last: 2010-11 employment, showing the bounce from January 2010’s 136,000 to December 2011’s 140,700.

…isn’t the 3^rd graphic a lot more “uplifting” than the first two?

A few notes on December 2011:

(a)  It’s unusual for December to be a peak month for annual employment in B2B anything, outside of retailer and those serving retailers.

(b)  December’s 140,700 was the highest employment figure for any one month in 2011.

(c)   The most recent number ABOVE that December figure was 140,900 – in August, 2009.

[*What’s NAICS? At one time, industries were classified by the government into SICs – Standard Industrial Classifications. With the coming in the 1990s of the free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico (i.e., NAFTA), the classification efforts of the three countries were “harmonized” into the North American Industry Classification System. ]