State overview · AR · Census CBP 2023
Arkansas Industry Benchmarks
Employment, establishments, and payroll for 719 industries in Arkansas. Drill into any industry for a Arkansas-specific view, then cross-reference the national page for margins.
- 1.1M
- Workers
- 69K
- Establishments
- 719
- Industries tracked
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · Arkansas
Arkansas employs 1,072,827 workers across 719 tracked industries, led by General Medical and Surgical Hospitals (61,108 workers) among the 307 detailed industries with published employment.
Health Care and Social Assistance anchors Arkansas; top-three cumulative share is 47%. Margins stay on national industry pages.
Arkansas sector employment mix
Share of private-sector employment by NAICS-2 sector (Census CBP 2023). Tile area = workers.
Health Care and Social Assistance is the clear anchor in Arkansas (18% of 1,072,827 private-sector workers (about the 33rd percentile of states by employment)), but sibling sectors still take meaningful shares. Read the treemap as an anchor-plus-breadth economy rather than a one-sector state.
Not ranked: 3 of 20 sectors have no published employment figure. Census County Business Patterns applies 2% or more noise to those cells, and PlainBizBench publishes only low-noise figures rather than estimating. Total employment, shares and the mix on this page sum only the sectors with a published figure. How we handle withheld data.
#1 · NAICS 62
Health Care and Social Assistance
194,618 · 18%
#2 · NAICS 31
Manufacturing
164,240 · 15%
#3 · NAICS 44
Retail Trade
144,531 · 13%
Anchor economy · Herfindahl 0.106 (open) · top-three 47% of Arkansas private payroll.
Profit margins are national (IRS SOI); open any industry row below, then the matching national industry page for profitability.
Census CBP firm roll
County Business Patterns AR ANCHORED · CBP
#34/51 · 1,072,827 workers · 69,049 firms
- EMP 1,072,827
- EST 69,049
- RANK #34/51
- PCT 33rd pct
- LEAD Health Care and Soci…
- SHARE 18% lead
- BAND anchored
- DENS 15.5 /firm
- BOOK 719 NAICS
- PHOTO Mississippi
Nearest employment-scale peer: Mississippi (955,942 workers)
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Arkansas ranks #34 of 51 states and territories by total private-sector employment (level-2 sector totals, the same non-double-counted aggregate shown above). Margins stay on national industry pages (IRS SOI). Read with this state → · Lead 6-digit industry →
AR in the employment-scale neighbourhood
Top Industries by Employment
Not ranked: 408 of 715 detailed industries have no published employment figure. Census County Business Patterns applies 2% or more noise to those cells, and PlainBizBench publishes only low-noise figures rather than estimating. Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices (941), All Other General Merchandise Stores (880), Lessors of Residential Buildings and Dwellings (766) and 46 more report more establishments than General Medical and Surgical Hospitals, so General Medical and Surgical Hospitals leads only among the 307 detailed industries with published employment. How we handle withheld data.
Scale peers for Arkansas's anchor economy
Nearest other states by Census CBP level-2 private employment (1,072,827 in Arkansas), excluding AR.
Source: Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 · AR
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.