Employment in national parks in 2015

The National Park Service turns 100 on August 25. The park service manages some of our nation’s most scenic and historic treasures, 412 of them in all. To help celebrate the centennial, here’s a brief look at employment in federal museums, historical sites, zoos, and parks in 2015. There were 23,429 jobs in these locations in 2015. (Some of these jobs were in other agencies besides the National Park Service.) The District of Columbia, home to the National Park Service headquarters and several parks, historic sites, and memorials, had 5,029 of these jobs. California, Virginia, New York, and Arizona each had more than 1,000 jobs in federal parks and similar organizations.

 

Another way to examine employment in federal museums, historical sites, zoos, and parks is with location quotients. A location quotient greater than 1 means the state has a higher share of employment than the national average. The District of Columbia had the highest location quotient at 40.30. Wyoming (18.69) and Alaska (13.46) also had high location quotients for employment in federal parks and similar organizations.

These data are from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. For industry employment and wage data at the national, state, county, and metropolitan area levels, see the data viewer tool or the QCEW Open Data Access.