Book: Standard Industrial Classification Manual (SIC). (circ) HF 1042. S73 l987. {Use the "alpha" Index, to quick view key word(s) in its many contexts.}
Unveiled 1937, the SIC code system is the original definer of the economy and business/industrial activity; it is still used, following several revisions, today in spite of limitations. SICs uses 4 digit code scheme. The industry groups and sub-groups strongly mirror a time period dominated by agriculture/extractive activities, manufacturing, industrial and retail, and cover, in lesser degree, many service & professional business activities. SIC schema is establishment-based, meaning a single physical location where the occurring economic therein is its primary activity. For these recognized industries, the government amassed detailed statistics in areas of: payroll, employment, profits, capital investments, and other data.
Increasingly subdivided, the SIC macro-level industrial groups are:
Ex: A "bicycle/repair shop business" is classed SIC #5941, Sporting Goods Stores & Bicycle Shops. See the SIC description: #5941.
Limitations/Weakness: Over time SIC codes & revisions lagged behind and did not adequately reflect many new, emerging business ventures of the late 20th century. Codes heavily favored manufacturing. The existing code descriptions were restrictive as defined, excluded or failed to precisely accommodate new economy sectors, new technologies, and accompanying "internet-age" business & services endeavors; the codes did not embrace them in a meaningful way or give them distinct recognition. SIC's limiting, rigid framework gathered many unrelated "info-age" industries/endeavors into similar categories, lacking precision of description or conceptual relevance as to why a category was chosen. Production of new high-tech products such as "computers" could be SIC grouped as "Industrial Machinery & Electrical Equipment", but not in a unique category by itself. Over time SIC shortcomings of being restrictive, unrecognizing, and too conservative; it became more apparent a newer, more relevant classification scheme was needed.
The web offers many venues to search known SIC codes or by keyword. One government site is the Labor Department's branch, OSHA.
The federal government is a very proactive aggregator and reporter of numeric data. Specific of this effort, the government long ago devised a classification code system to identify and describe all facets of the U.S. economy and to standardize and track business/industry data and economic activity. Envisioned within this framework, all business/industry units would be defined and tracked not individually by their known business name but rather by their primary activity (ies) and physical location.
A task daunting in conception and creation, the effort evolved to a hierarchy of top-most identified industry groups, logical sub-industry groups within, and drilling down defining more related cluster groups into which units of a similar nature could be placed.
Describing the economy's structure and composition by a devised classification system served to define all business/industrial units in terms of what a single establishment does and into what defined code activity category they are best assigned for purposes of government's tracking and reporting.
With numerous federal agencies and trade groups as well collecting vast amounts of quantitative data on business & economic activity, the circumscribing classification structure organizing these activities allowed agencies' output results {i.e., analysis, reportings, & trends tracking} to be: uniform, focused, consistent, and comparable within and across reporting venues.
The two classing schemes currently in use are: Standard Industrial Classification Code [SIC] and the newer, North American Industry Classification System [NAICS] codes.
SIC and NAICS codes are common descriptive elements found in any busness profile description. By concept and design, classification schemes establish a structure for organizing and defining,bring together entities of like nature with similar attributes, and, at the same time, account for unique differences by class categories created.
So knowing a code, what are some ways they may be used in research:
Book: North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), 2012. (circ) HF 1042. N67. [Use the "alpha" index to quick view key word(s) in its many contexts.]
Implementation of the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement {NFTA} further informed a need for changing the SIC sytem. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) was developed to address SIC inadequacies and to better reflect new realities of an economy and newer industries/businesses that are service-based, internet-driven, and highly technological. Given inter-trading of goods & services among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada a newer system also better addressed comparability of statistical information. NAICS codes are six digits in a hierarchical code system classifying all economic activity into twenty industry sectors. Broadly, the NAICS basic two-digit sectors:
Example: Manufacturing a biometric system input such as an iris pattern recognition device would be NAICS coded #334118 "Computer Terminal & Other Peripheral Equip Manufacturing.
NAICS' framework is production oriented with more emphasis on process, focusing on types of, sequence, and consistency in economic activities performed. The focus of NAICS categorizing industries more on what they do than who they market to serve.
Online: Learn more about NAICS, code revisions, and search codes & catagoreis via the U.S. Census Bureau.