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Census webinar demos manufacturing data tools, previews Manufacturing Week visuals
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Summary
At a September 2025 Census Bureau webinar, supervisory statistician Adam Grundy demonstrated Census manufacturing data products — including the Job‑to‑Job Explorer, County Business Patterns, Nonemployer Statistics and the economic census — and answered users’ questions on data definitions, confidentiality and access to the Census API.
Adam Grundy, supervisory statistician in the Economic Management Division at the U.S. Census Bureau, walked attendees through the Census’s manufacturing data resources and interactive tools during a September 2025 webinar hosted by the Local Employment Dynamics partnership.
Grundy said the Census produces a hierarchy of economic products — high-frequency indicators, monthly and quarterly surveys, annual surveys and the economic census every five years — and described how those programs feed tools such as County Business Patterns (CBP), the Annual Business Survey (ABS), Nonemployer Statistics (NES) and the Job‑to‑Job Explorer. "Manufacturing is still the fifth largest employer according to the 2023 County Business Patterns data," he said as he previewed new visualizations to be published during Manufacturing Week.
The presenter demonstrated the Job‑to‑Job Explorer, showing how users can set origin and destination sectors, pick date ranges and state filters, and read hires‑to metrics on a map. In the demo he cited example hires‑to totals for 2023 quarters (hovering over Texas produced a hires‑to figure of about 44,808 and California about 42,592 in the selected view). Grundy also showed state economic snapshots and a new economic‑census visualization that displays revenue, employment and payroll at multiple geographies. He cautioned users about units on the revenue display (figures are shown in thousands) and gave the example that California manufacturing revenue displayed in the demo was roughly in the $656 billion range.
On coverage and sources, Grundy explained the difference between employer‑establishment series and nonemployer statistics. NES measures businesses without paid employees and is derived largely from IRS 1099 records; CBP covers employer establishments and is published at national, state, metro, county, congressional district and ZIP code levels. He noted the Annual Integrated Economic Survey (AIES) folded several prior annual surveys into a single program, and that the 2024 ABS first‑look tables were released in February 2025. He also summarized economic census timing: the 2022 cycle remains in staged release with final products planned through March 2026.
When attendees asked why some values are labeled "not able to meet publication standards," Grundy explained the Census suppresses fine‑geography detail when cell counts risk revealing individual business data. "We have to protect the individual businesses," he said, describing suppression as a confidentiality safeguard that can limit what is shown at small geographies.
Grundy pointed users to additional resources: e‑commerce statistics (E‑Stats) for the digital economy, the Census API and data.census.gov for downloads, QuickFacts and OnTheMap for other use cases, and the Census Bureau's briefing room for economic indicators and seasonally adjusted data. "The Census API is free for anybody who wants to use it," he said, adding that users may contact him for follow‑up help.
The webinar closed with a reminder that Manufacturing Week runs Sept. 29–Oct. 3 and that the session recording and slides will be posted to the Census Academy site and the Manufacturing Week page. The moderator announced the next Local Employment Dynamics webinar on Oct. 15 and invited attendees to complete an evaluation.
