Today we’re looking at one sector of the U.S. economy, the Information Sector. This sector includes industries such as publishing, movie making, telecommunications, broadcasting, data processing, web hosting and all sorts of Internet activities associated with the dissemination of information. The sector is identified in the North American Industrial Coding System (NAICS) as sector 51 and includes the activities of 78 industries.

Total revenue for this sector grew by 26% from 2007 to 2014, making it one of the better-performing sectors within the larger Service Sector. Yet a closer look at the main groups in the Information Sector shows that their paths vary greatly over this period. The broadcasting industries and those related to the Internet saw real growth while the others saw little if any growth, considering that the cumulative inflation rate over this period was 14%.

The chart above shows the growth each of the industrial sectors within the Information Sector has had over the period at which we’re looking and includes a red line showing the cumulative rate of inflation over the period. Real growth only happened in the industries whose growth rate exceeded the cumulative rate of inflation.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2007 and 2014
Market size: $1.08 and $1.37 trillion respectively
Source: “Table 1: Estimated Revenue for Employer and Nonemployer Firms: 2007 through 2014,” 2014 Services Annual Survey, U.S. Census Bureau, January 28, 2016, available online here.
Original source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
Posted on May 24, 2016