Dispersion Statistics on Productivity in the Retail Trade Sector

A Joint Project

How does productivity vary by establishment?

On September 30, 2025, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the U.S. Census Bureau updated an experimental data product, Dispersion Statistics on Productivity (DiSP), to include the retail sector. The Census Bureau has reviewed this data product to ensure appropriate access, use, and disclosure avoidance protection of the confidential source data. (Project No. P-7526913, Disclosure Review Board (DRB) approval number: CBDRB-FY25-0421).

DiSP covers all 27 4-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) retail industries for the years 1987 through 2017 in years ending in "2" and "7". Industry classifications are based on longitudinally consistent 2017 NAICS codes. Detailed information on the construction of this data product is available in the working paper, National Chains and Trends in Retail Productivity Dispersion.

The data available for the retail sector allow us to calculate labor productivity as real sales per hour of employment input at that entity using data from the Economic Census. These statistics are calculated for all establishments and firms within an industry. The provided data contain dispersion statistics for establishments and firms by year and industry. In addition, the firm file contains data on the fraction of industry productivity dispersion that is due to establishments of multi-unit firms having different productivities.

See the Manufacturing DiSP page for an explanation of how productivity dispersion measures are calculated and their usefulness.