State overview · PA · Census CBP 2023
Pennsylvania Industry Benchmarks
Employment, establishments, and payroll for 1085 industries in Pennsylvania. Drill into any industry for a Pennsylvania-specific view, then cross-reference the national page for margins.
- 5.7M
- Workers
- 306K
- Establishments
- 1085
- Industries tracked
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania employs 5,684,514 workers across 1085 tracked industries, led by Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices (215,514 workers) among the 501 detailed industries with published employment.
Health Care and Social Assistance anchors Pennsylvania; top-three cumulative share is 41%. Margins stay on national industry pages.
Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania (20% of 5,684,514 private-sector workers (about the 90th 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: 2 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
1,142,207 · 20%
#2 · NAICS 44
Retail Trade
650,539 · 11%
#3 · NAICS 31
Manufacturing
564,394 · 10%
Anchor economy · Herfindahl 0.094 (open) · top-three 41% of Pennsylvania 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 PA ANCHORED · CBP
#5/51 · 5,684,514 workers · 305,947 firms
- EMP 5,684,514
- EST 305,947
- RANK #5/51
- PCT 90th pct
- LEAD Health Care and Soci…
- SHARE 20% lead
- BAND anchored
- DENS 18.6 /firm
- BOOK 1085 NAICS
- PHOTO Illinois
Nearest employment-scale peer: Illinois (5,659,820 workers)
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Pennsylvania ranks #5 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 →
PA in the employment-scale neighbourhood
Top Industries by Employment
Not ranked: 405 of 906 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 Physicians (except Mental Health Specialists) (7,854), Commercial Banking (3,428) and All Other General Merchandise Stores (2,163) report more establishments than Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices, so Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices leads only among the 501 detailed industries with published employment. How we handle withheld data.
Scale peers for Pennsylvania's anchor economy
Nearest other states by Census CBP level-2 private employment (5,684,514 in Pennsylvania), excluding PA.
Source: Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 · PA
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.