Nonprofits Are America’s Third-Largest Employer, Report Says

Title: “Nonprofits: America’s Third Largest Workforce”

Organization: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies

Summary: The nonprofit work force ranks third in America with 11.9 million employees, trailing only the retail trade and manufacturing, according to the report, which uses U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and is searchable.

For the first time since the Hopkins center began issuing the study, it breaks down nonprofit employment not just nationally and by state but for nearly 1,900 of the country’s approximately 3,100 counties.

Among the findings:

• Washington, D.C., has the highest proportion of nonprofit workers at 26.2 percent. Nevada’s ratio is the lowest at 2.6 percent.
• Nonprofits account for more than 10 percent of the work force in more than half of states and employ more people than manufacturing in nearly half the states.
• The health-care industry, including hospitals, clinics, and home health services, employs 54 percent of all nonprofit workers.