Employers in U.S. Cities: A Census Data Report
Where employers are, city by city, from U.S. Census Bureau data.
The cities in this dataset hold 3,133,059 employer establishments and 122.8 million residents, or 25.5 employers per 1,000 people. New York leads with 235,589, and 55.6% of employers across these cities have fewer than five employees.
What are the headline figures?
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| States | 48 |
| Employer establishments | 3,133,059 |
| Residents | 122,755,272 |
| Employers per 1,000 residents | 25.5 (U.S.: 24.5) |
| Fewer than 5 employees | 55.6% |
| 5 to 9 employees | 16.5% |
| 10 to 19 employees | 12.3% |
| 20 to 49 employees | 9.4% |
| 50 or more employees | 6.3% |
An employer establishment is one business location with paid employees. Owner-only businesses with no payroll aren't counted, so these figures leave out most sole proprietors and gig work.
Which cities have the most employers?
| Rank | City | Employers | Per 1,000 residents | Under 5 employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York, NY | 235,589 | 27.4 | 64% |
| 2 | Los Angeles, CA | 128,109 | 33.1 | 67% |
| 3 | Houston, TX | 67,416 | 28.1 | 54% |
| 4 | Chicago, IL | 63,866 | 23.4 | 57% |
| 5 | San Diego, CA | 45,036 | 32.0 | 58% |
| 6 | Phoenix, AZ | 39,457 | 23.7 | 54% |
| 7 | Dallas, TX | 38,291 | 28.8 | 54% |
| 8 | Austin, TX | 33,411 | 33.3 | 56% |
| 9 | San Francisco, CA | 33,394 | 40.4 | 55% |
| 10 | San Antonio, TX | 30,066 | 19.4 | 49% |
| 11 | Philadelphia, PA | 29,375 | 18.7 | 55% |
| 12 | Charlotte, NC | 27,356 | 28.4 | 54% |
| 13 | Denver, CO | 27,283 | 36.8 | 57% |
| 14 | Seattle, WA | 26,679 | 34.0 | 55% |
| 15 | Jacksonville, FL | 26,251 | 25.8 | 56% |
| 16 | Portland, OR | 23,476 | 37.0 | 53% |
| 17 | Indianapolis, IN | 22,527 | 25.0 | 49% |
| 18 | Oklahoma City, OK | 21,081 | 29.3 | 52% |
| 19 | Miami, FL | 20,377 | 41.6 | 70% |
| 20 | Nashville, TN | 20,165 | 28.0 | 47% |
| 21 | Boston, MA | 20,036 | 29.8 | 48% |
| 22 | Atlanta, GA | 19,822 | 37.5 | 58% |
| 23 | San Jose, CA | 19,615 | 19.8 | 54% |
| 24 | Fort Worth, TX | 18,533 | 18.0 | 50% |
| 25 | Columbus, OH | 17,548 | 18.7 | 46% |
New York's 235,589 employers are 1.8 times the count in Los Angeles. Texas places 5 cities in the top 25: Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Fort Worth.
Where are employers densest per resident?
Among the 319 cities with 100,000 or more residents, these have the most employers per 1,000 people:
| City | Per 1,000 residents | Employers | Residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boca Raton, FL | 85.7 | 8,701 | 101,582 |
| Fort Lauderdale, FL | 59.0 | 11,127 | 188,677 |
| Burbank, CA | 53.2 | 5,475 | 102,988 |
| Pasadena, CA | 50.7 | 6,886 | 135,804 |
| Carlsbad, CA | 49.5 | 5,559 | 112,260 |
| Sandy Springs, GA | 49.5 | 5,202 | 105,013 |
| Torrance, CA | 49.1 | 6,799 | 138,391 |
| Costa Mesa, CA | 48.7 | 5,299 | 108,881 |
| West Palm Beach, FL | 46.4 | 5,901 | 127,189 |
| Scottsdale, AZ | 45.9 | 11,157 | 243,006 |
| Irvine, CA | 45.5 | 14,511 | 318,764 |
| Sugar Land, TX | 45.2 | 4,866 | 107,726 |
| Bellevue, WA | 42.5 | 6,548 | 154,193 |
| Glendale, CA | 41.8 | 7,824 | 187,160 |
| Miami, FL | 41.6 | 20,377 | 489,812 |
Boca Raton leads at 85.7, 3.4 times the rate across the dataset. The list leans to suburban office and retail hubs in Florida and Southern California, where many people who work there live somewhere else. At the other end, Clarksville, TN (6.5) and Murfreesboro, TN (6.7) have the fewest employers per resident among cities this size.
Where do the smallest employers lead?
Among cities with 2,000 or more employers, these have the highest share with fewer than five employees:
| City | Under 5 employees | Employers |
|---|---|---|
| Beverly Hills, CA | 74.1% | 5,288 |
| Coral Springs, FL | 72.1% | 3,938 |
| Wellington, FL | 71.7% | 2,511 |
| North Miami, FL | 71.7% | 2,051 |
| Aventura, FL | 71.5% | 2,084 |
| Pembroke Pines, FL | 71.1% | 3,808 |
| Miami Beach, FL | 71.0% | 4,771 |
| Miami, FL | 70.5% | 20,377 |
| Redondo Beach, CA | 70.4% | 2,378 |
| New Rochelle, NY | 70.1% | 2,235 |
| Cape Coral, FL | 70.0% | 4,582 |
| Hollywood, FL | 69.7% | 6,091 |
Florida holds 9 of the top 12. Beverly Hills tops the list at 74.1%, against 55.6% across the dataset. We use these figures to describe each local market, not to judge a file: a funder reads your bank statements, not your ZIP code.
Which trades are most common across these cities?
| Trade | Employers in the dataset | Share of all employers |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurants (full-service and limited-service) | 208,772 | 6.7% |
| Physicians' offices | 89,351 | 2.9% |
| Dentists' offices | 56,775 | 1.8% |
| Clothing and accessories stores | 53,174 | 1.7% |
| Beauty and nail salons | 48,037 | 1.5% |
| Residential remodelers | 42,478 | 1.4% |
| General freight trucking | 33,459 | 1.1% |
| Child day care services | 30,460 | 1.0% |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 30,421 | 1.0% |
| Landscaping services | 26,167 | 0.8% |
| General automotive repair | 24,794 | 0.8% |
| Janitorial services | 22,868 | 0.7% |
These are the 34 trades we track by NAICS code, not every industry. Restaurants alone account for 6.7% of all employers in the dataset.
Which states hold the most employers in the dataset?
| State | Employers in those cities |
|---|---|
| California | 647,614 |
| Texas | 360,136 |
| Florida | 270,579 |
| New York | 270,564 |
| Illinois | 137,258 |
| Arizona | 105,715 |
| Washington | 83,941 |
| North Carolina | 79,725 |
| Colorado | 78,765 |
| Georgia | 76,735 |
These totals cover only the cities in this dataset, not every business in the state. See every city on the merchant cash advance by city page.
How was this data built?
- Employer counts come from the Census Bureau's ZIP Code Business Patterns, which counts establishments with paid employees by ZIP code, employment size and NAICS industry.
- Each ZIP code's counts are split across cities by the share of the ZIP code's land area inside each city, using the Census ZCTA-to-place relationship file. Where a city has no usable ZIP data, its count is estimated from its population and its county's employers per resident, from County Business Patterns.
- Population comes from the Census Bureau's city and town population estimates. Employers per 1,000 residents is the employer count divided by the population, times 1,000.
- Size shares use the ZIP Code Business Patterns employment-size classes. The 50-or-more share is what remains after the four smaller classes.
- Trade counts add up the NAICS codes we use for each trade, split by land area the same way.
- The cities run from New York down to cities of about 20,000 residents. We don't place deals in Connecticut, Missouri or Virginia while our registration in those states is not yet effective; see Licenses and disclosures.
Splitting ZIP codes by land area is an estimate. A ZIP code that straddles a city line can push a city's count up or down, which is one reason office hubs read high per resident. The figures use the Census Bureau's latest releases at the time the data was built, and they'll be refreshed when new releases come out.
Can I download or cite the data?
Yes. Download the full table as a CSV: every city in the dataset with state, population, employers, employers per 1,000 residents and employment-size counts. You're free to use it with a link to this page as the source.
For which states require a written cost disclosure on a merchant cash advance, see our MCA disclosure laws by state report.
For how we check figures before they go live, see our content standards.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns and ZIP Code Business Patterns.
- U.S. Census Bureau, ZCTA to place relationship files.
- U.S. Census Bureau, city and town population estimates.
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