Information
The share of jobs within commuting reach of a tract that are in the information sector.
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Of all the jobs within commuting reach of a tract, the share located in NAICS sector 51. The twenty sectors together account for the whole reachable pool, so this measures the mix of available work rather than its volume. See Accessible jobs for how the pool is defined.
The Census Bureau defines the sector as comprising "establishments engaged in the following processes: (a) producing and distributing information and cultural products, (b) providing the means to transmit or distribute these products as well as data or communications, and (c) processing data." Its main components are "motion picture and sound recording industries; publishing industries, including software publishing; broadcasting and content providers; telecommunications industries; computing infrastructure providers, data processing, Web hosting, and related services; and Web search portals, libraries, archives, and other information services" (2022 NAICS definitions).
The boundary matters when reading this as a technology signal. Software publishing, data processing and web hosting are in this sector, but computer systems design and related services — consulting, custom programming and IT services — are classified in NAICS 5415, inside professional, scientific and technical services. A place's technology employment is therefore split between this family and Professional, scientific & technical, and neither alone captures it.
Metrics in this family#
Considerations#
Information is one of the smaller sectors by employment, and small shares move sharply. A single large publisher, broadcaster or data center operator can dominate the reachable pool of a lightly employed area, so a high value in a rural tract usually reflects one employer rather than a broad industry base.
Jobs are counted where the work is located, not where workers live. The Bureau defines the place of work as the address the employer reports administratively, which "may or may not be the actual location that a worker reports to most often," and notes that LODES has no information about remote work (LODES Design and Methodology Report). That limitation weighs more here than in most sectors, since much of this work can be performed away from the reported site.
To protect confidentiality, the Bureau infuses noise into the underlying employer and establishment records, holding a worksite's factor constant over time so year-to-year change is preserved. Sector is a secondary characteristic, estimated during that protection rather than carried directly, which adds uncertainty at small geographies.
Alaska and Michigan have no workplace files for the two most recent data years, and Puerto Rico is not covered; tracts there carry no value.
References#
- 12022 NAICS definitionshttps://www.census.gov/naics/2022NAICS/2022_NAICS_Descriptions.xlsx
- 2LODES Design and Methodology Reporthttps://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2025/adrm/ces/CES-WP-25-52.pdf