State overview · ND · Census CBP 2023
North Dakota Industry Benchmarks
Employment, establishments, and payroll for 492 industries in North Dakota. Drill into any industry for a North Dakota-specific view, then cross-reference the national page for margins.
- 328K
- Workers
- 24K
- Establishments
- 492
- Industries tracked
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · North Dakota
North Dakota employs 327,925 workers across 492 tracked industries, led by General Medical and Surgical Hospitals (19,951 workers) among the 210 detailed industries with published employment.
Health Care and Social Assistance anchors North Dakota; top-three cumulative share is 44%. Margins stay on national industry pages.
North Dakota 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 North Dakota (20% of 327,925 private-sector workers (about the 8th 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: 4 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
64,188 · 20%
#2 · NAICS 44
Retail Trade
45,791 · 14%
#3 · NAICS 72
Accommodation and Food Services
34,052 · 10%
Anchor economy · Herfindahl 0.102 (open) · top-three 44% of North Dakota 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 ND ANCHORED · CBP
#47/51 · 327,925 workers · 24,190 firms
- EMP 327,925
- EST 24,190
- RANK #47/51
- PCT 8th pct
- LEAD Health Care and Soci…
- SHARE 20% lead
- BAND anchored
- DENS 13.6 /firm
- BOOK 492 NAICS
- PHOTO South Dakota
Nearest employment-scale peer: South Dakota (297,192 workers)
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, North Dakota ranks #47 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 →
ND in the employment-scale neighbourhood
Top Industries by Employment
Not ranked: 320 of 530 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. Offices of Real Estate Agents and Brokers (373), General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance, Truckload (273), Grain and Field Bean Merchant Wholesalers (256) and 38 more report more establishments than General Medical and Surgical Hospitals, so General Medical and Surgical Hospitals leads only among the 210 detailed industries with published employment. How we handle withheld data.
Scale peers for North Dakota's anchor economy
Nearest other states by Census CBP level-2 private employment (327,925 in North Dakota), excluding ND.
Source: Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 · ND
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.