The NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) was created by the U.S. federal government as a means of classifying business establishments according to the industry with which they are aligned.
Example: 236115 New Single-Family Housing Construction (except Operative Builders)
23= construction (sector)
236= construction of buildings (subsector)
2361= residential building construction (internation stry)
(Source: U.S. Census Bureau)
Why is this important?
It is helpful to know the NAICS code of the industry you are researching because some databases support the NAICS code as a searchable field. This search option can often remove the ambiguity of using natural language search terms while looking for articles in the business press. The following databases support searching by NAICS code (partial list):
