Boat Building Industry Census Data

Boat Building Industry Census Data

The place to begin most census information quests is the annual U.S. Statistical Abstract. It contains a great deal of data. The paper copy has a lot of references in it that will lead you to additional statistics. An on-line partial version is available, Statistical Abstract of the U.S..

In addition to the population census, the government regularly (each 5 years) conducts extensive census of business areas. The years straddle the population census dates. 1992 and 1997 are the two most recent business census. The 1997 data will be becoming available soon.

General areas are covered by different census, they include:

If you are looking for one of our specific industries, it often helps to have the SIC (Standard Industrial Classification Code). Here are some SIC codes you may find useful:
SIC Code         Industry
3732         Boat Building and Repair
37322        Outboard Motor Boats
37323        Inboard Motor Boats
37324        Inboard-Outdrive Motor Boats

3519         Internal Combustion Engines
35683 94     Inboard Marine Propulsion Gear Transmissions
35683 96     Outboard Gear Drives (Inboard Prime Mover)
4493         Marinas

555          Boat Dealers
7699         Outboard Motor Repair
7997         Yacht Clubs
The actual Census Documents can be found either on-line at the Census Bureau WWW site, on-line at the Census Forum on the BEA (Bureau of Economics Affairs) Bulletin Board on the Telnet Fedworld site, at your local Federal Depository Library, or on this site. Much of the data is now available on CD-ROMS and may be available at you local library as well.

Census of Manufacturing and Census of Transportation

The major census report on the Boat Building Industry is in the Census of Manufacturing: Transportation Equipment. The 1992 edition is now available.
MC92-I-37C Ship and Boat Building, Railroad and Miscellaneous Transportation Equipment
(Industries 3731, 3732, 3743, 3751, 3792, 3795, and 3799)
$6.00

803-018-00160-6 GPO 96pp. rel. 05/03/95

Availability: Order from the Government Printing Office (GPO), 202-512-1800. Reference twelve digit stock numbers. Also available on CD-ROM .

The bureau now posts a pdf (Adobe Acrobat) version on the web. If you are interested in commercial applications, pay particular attention to the ship building sections such as at the top of pdf page 31.

For Information on firms and facilities involved in waterway transportation of goods or people, see the 1992 Census of Transportation, Communication and Utilities. Subject Series: Miscellaneous Subjects. Report #UC92-S-2. This is about a 2 meg pdf file and requires Adobe Acrobat to read it.

Another frequently used report is MA 35L. This annual report, covers Engines nec (Not elsewhere classified) and includes marine engines. The last few years reports are available on the census bureau site at: http://www.census.gov/pub/econ/www.ip2100.html . When you get to the page, select "VIEW" at the top of the page and you will be given links to the last few years reports.

The Boat Dealers information is shown in the Retail Census report. It can be found at: http://www.census.gov/pub/epcd/www/rc92h55x.html. Note you can divide some of the numbers by the number of dealers and compare your firm to the average.

General census information on foreign trade is available on the U.S. International Trade Statistics Page. If you begin to look for the "B Commodity Export Codes" you will find our industry in the range between 8407 and 8412. You can find the exact code you are looking for and then go to the Oregon State University U.S. Imports and Exports site and look at some of the 1991 to 1995 data on CD ROM for items shipped to or from Specific Countries and for Specific U.S. ports. The Oregon State Import Export site is also word searchable. After you input a word and another screen appears, you may need to scroll down to see the data. It will also present specific country and port options to you. Additional, even more up-to-date data, can be found on U.S. Import Export CD's in many public libraries.

The census bureau also publishes "Concentration Ratios" that indicate what percentage of the total business in a four digit SIC code is being done by the largest firms in the industry.

The Manufacturing Census report is called "Concentration Ratios in Manufacturing" and is numbered MC(yr)-S-6 (where yr is last two digits of the census year). It indicates the percentage of business done by the top 4, 8,20, and 50 companies in each four digit SIC code industry. The full 1992 printed report is expected to be available in December of 1996; however, some of the data is already available on-line. We have copied the information pertaining to boat builders to our Concentration Ratio Page. If you tried to look at the Engines nec data it is clouded by a number manufacturers of non-marine engines (lawn mowers, etc) and is not as specific as the boat builder data.

Similarly the Retail Census has a report called 1992 Establishment & Firm Size Subject Series #RC92-S-1. This report provides information on the size of the companies, sales statistics, employment size, multi-unit info, payroll, and concentration of the largest firms. We have copied the concentration information pertaining to Boat Dealers to our Concentration Ratio Page.

The Manufacturing and Retail Census provide a world of additional data and some of it is available at the county and state level. Use the Census Bureau search engine to find if what you are looking for is available.

One nice place to enter the census web site for current trends and census data is the U.S. Official Statistics Page.

Return to Recreational Boat Building Industry Home Page