U.S. employment share by sector

This chart tracks how much of total U.S. nonfarm payroll employment sits in six selected sectors over the past ten years. Each share uses total nonfarm payrolls in the same month as its denominator. Healthcare excludes social assistance and public-sector health jobs; the selected sectors do not cover the whole economy.

Latest observation: 2026-09-01·Expected cadence: Monthly

Work Economy

October 2016–September 2026. Selected sectors; healthcare excludes social assistance. Government includes public-sector health jobs.

What does it show?

Over this window, healthcare's share of payroll jobs changed by +1.0 percentage points, compared with -1.2 points for retail trade.

Methodology

Monthly, seasonally adjusted U.S. BLS Current Employment Statistics payroll counts, in thousands, distributed by FRED: healthcare (CES6562000101), professional and business services (USPBS), leisure and hospitality (USLAH), manufacturing (MANEMP), retail trade (USTRADE), government (USGOVT), and total nonfarm payrolls (PAYEMS). Healthcare excludes social assistance and public-sector health jobs, which are classified under government. These are employer industries, not occupations or unique people; multiple jobholders can be counted more than once. The selected sectors are mutually exclusive but do not cover the whole economy. Each line is 100 × sector payrolls / total nonfarm payrolls (PAYEMS) in the same month. This is a share level, not a share of net new jobs. Lines are unstacked; the six selected shares are not expected to sum to 100%. The window starts in the calendar month ten years before the refresh date (2026-10-04), currently October 2016, and ends in September 2026, the latest completed month available in every series. Every monthly observation is retained. Missing baselines or internal months fail the refresh; no interpolation or carry-forward is used. History is rebuilt from the current revised release on each refresh.

U.S. employment share by sector

Methodology

Sources