Buying, selling, transporting — what Kansas Citians do

There are more job titles than we can imagine — or care to list — from ambulance and bus drivers to yearbook printers and zither makers. But in getting a picture of what people in the Kansas City area do for a living, the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides a framework through groups of jobs it calls supersectors.

All nonfarm employment — about 1,033,700 jobs in the region in August — falls under one of nine supersectors.

The largest for our area, with 1 in 5 workers, is trade, transportation and utilities. The nearly 208,000 area jobs in that supersector included wholesalers, transportation and utility workers, and retail trade. So more than 20 percent of our jobs involve buying, selling and moving things — and providing the energy to do that.

Almost as large, at 1 in 6 workers, is professional and business services. That includes scientific and technical services, but also company managers.

For those two supersectors, their share of Kansas City area employment is a percentage point or two higher than the national average.

Third largest, at almost 1 in 7 area workers, is education and health services. Fourth is government, where jobs account for almost 1 in 8 workers.

The other supersector with a share that’s at least 1 in 10 workers is leisure and hospitality services. Those include arts, entertainment, hotels and food services.

For education and health, government, and leisure and hospitality, those supersectors’ shares of Kansas City area jobs lag the national averages by a percentage point or two.

This story was originally published October 23, 2015 at 4:00 AM with the headline "Buying, selling, transporting — what Kansas Citians do."