BEACON: An Industry Classification Tool

Every five years, the U.S. Census Bureau conducts the Economic Census – an extensive survey covering approximately 8 million business establishments that provides a detailed view of the U.S. economy. BEACON (Business Establishment Automated Classification of NAICS) is a machine learning tool currently being used in the 2022 Economic Census to help respondents self-classify their primary business activity in terms of NAICS (North American Industry Classification System). Using BEACON is similar to using a search engine. The respondent provides a short business description, and then BEACON returns a list of relevant NAICS codes. The methodology involves natural language processing, machine learning, and information retrieval. This presentation provides an overview of BEACON and its performance so far in the 2022 Economic Census.

BEACON

Economic Census

NAICS

Text classification

U.S. Census Bureau 

Mid-Level

Practice and Applications

Symposium on Data Science and Statistics (SDSS) 2023