Economic Sectors - Natural Resources And Mining

The natural resources and mining supersector includes all agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, and mining enterprises. Farms engaged in growing crops and raising animals are included in this sector, as are lumber and fishing operations, coal mining, petroleum and natural gas extraction, and other mining and quarrying activities.

Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting, NAICS 11

In addition to farms, businesses in this sector include ranches, dairies, greenhouses, nurseries, orchards, hatcheries, and logging companies. Forestry, fishing, and hunting

FIGURE 2.2

businesses are differentiated from agricultural enterprises in that they harvest products directly from their natural environments. Workers in the forestry sector are engaged in numerous occupations in addition to cutting trees to produce lumber. For example, conservation workers collect data on forests, plant seedlings, remove diseased trees, apply insecticides to existing trees, and manage forests to maintain animal habitats and to ensure compliance with federal regulations regarding the industry.

In Career Guide to Industries: 2004–05 Edition, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that while small, family farms made up more than 90% of all farm businesses in the United States, large, commercial farms (those with more than $250,000 in annual sales) accounted for more than half of U.S. agricultural production. The agriculture subsector is divided into two segments: those that produce crops and those that produce livestock, including beef, hogs, and poultry. More than half of farmers are self-employed. Survey results from a 2002 Census of Agriculture: United States Data from the National Agriculture Statistics Service shows that the number of farms, amount of acreage, and harvested land decreased between 1997 and 2002.

According to the BLS in Career Guide to Industries: 2004–05 Edition, more than 2.2 million people were employed in the agriculture sector during 2002. However, the BLS also reported that agriculture was one of the lowestpaying professions in the United States, with wages ranging from $9.40 an hour for laborers to $28.78 an hour for supervisory or management positions in 2003. In addition, the workforce unemployment rate, at 10.2% in the agriculture sector during 2003, was 70% higher than the national average of 6%.

Mining, NAICS 21

The mining industry is composed of subsectors that produce coal, ores, liquid minerals (e.g., petroleum),

FIGURE 2.3

gases, and minerals. The Bureau of Economic Analysis in its Annual Industry Accounts (January 2005) reported that the combined mining sector realized a gross total output of $243.7 billion in 2003. About 1.8 million workers were engaged in the mining industry in June 2004, according to the BLS in Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

The National Mining Association (NMA), an industry advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., estimated on its Web site (www.nma.org) that the total value of coal production in 2003 was about $19 billion. More than one billion tons of coal are produced each year in the United States. In 2002 the wage and salary workforce numbered 74,000 in the coal mining industry.

Nonfuel mineral production in the United States topped $44 billion in 2004, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Mineral Commodity Survey 2005. The top four mineral-producing states accounted for more than one-quarter of total national output. With 8.23% of national production, California was the leading state in production value in 2004, producing $3.6 billion in sand, gravel, cement, boron minerals, crushed stone, and diatomite. Nevada, which chiefly produced gold, sand, gravel, lime, silver, and crushed stone, was second with 7.4% of national production and a value of roughly $3.3 billion. Arizona was third at 6.83% ($3 billion), and Texas was fourth at 5.47% ($2.4 billion), according to Mineral Commodity Summary 2005. Figure 2.4 shows the role of nonfuel minerals in the U.S. economy. During 2002, according to the BLS in Career Guide to Industries: 2004–05 Edition, there were 29,000 wage and salary workers in metal mining and 107,000 in nonmetallic mineral mining.

The BEA in its Annual Industry Accounts (January 2005) reported that the oil and gas extraction sector had a

FIGURE 2.4

gross output totaling $156 billion in 2003. Career Guide to Industries: 2004–05 Edition reported that gas extraction, the largest sector in the mining industry, employed 123,000 workers in 2002. More than three-quarters of these employees worked in California, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.