The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) first constructed and sized the Digital Economy Satellite Account in March 2018, and has since revised and updated it annually, gradually expanding its scope from “primarily digital” goods and services to include “partially digital” goods and services. According to the June 2021 standard, the United States divides the digital economy into three broad categories and 10 subcategories, corresponding to 292 industries in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).

(a) Infrastructure, including Hardware (Hardware), Software (Software) and Structures (Structures) three sub-categories. Among them, Structures refers to the construction facilities of digital economy producers to create digital economy goods or provide digital economy services, which is not currently included in the statistics.

UMC100 (B) E-commerce, including B2B and B2C two categories. At present, only the commodity trading part is counted, and the statistics of the service part have not been included.

(c) Priced digital services, including five sub-categories: Cloud services, Telecommunications services, Internet and data services, and Digital intermediary services services) and All other priced digital services. Among them, digital intermediary services are not yet included in the statistics, and Internet and data services are only partially included.

The US digital economy is growing significantly faster than the national economy as a whole. According to BEA data, the real value added of the digital economy grew at an average annual rate of 6.5% from 2005 to 2019, while the total economic output grew at an average annual rate of 1.8%. The proportion of digital economy in GDP has increased year by year from 7.8% in 2005 to 9.6% in 2019. In 2019, the size of the digital economy in the United States was $2,051.6 billion, an increase of 5.2%, and it was the fourth largest industry in the United States after real estate and leasing, government, and manufacturing.

In terms of sub-sectors, software, e-commerce and telecom services are the three major sub-sectors, accounting for 23%, 22% and 20.2% of the added value in 2019, respectively, accounting for 65.2% in total; Hardware and other paid-for digital services are also on a larger scale. With the passage UMC100 of time, the proportion of software, B2C e-commerce, Internet and data services three industries has been increasing; Hardware and telecommunications services are on a downward trend, mainly because their prices continue to fall in line with technological change; B2B e-commerce and other paid digital services after several years of rapid growth, respectively, showed a decline in proportion and relatively stable trend. As shown in the following picture.

Figure 2005-2019 US digital economy industry share structure

Note: Each industry corresponds to 14 bar charts, from left to right, representing 2005, 2006… Annual share for 2019.

In 2019, the US digital economy supported 7.7 million full – and part-time jobs, or 5.0% of total employment (155.2 million). The four industries that contributed the most jobs were computer systems design and related services (2.1 million), wholesale trading (1.8 million), broadcasting and telecommunications (743,000), and computer and electronic parts manufacturing (683,000).

Canada: Support services is the second largest sub-sector, contributing the largest number of jobs

UMC100 In May 2019, Statistics Canada divided the digital economy into three broad categories, drawing on the work of the OECD (2017) and BEA (2018). There are 70 Supply and Use Product Code (SUPC) industries, of which 36 are all digital products and 34 are partially digital products.

(1) Digital-Enabled infrastructure. Includes 6 subclasses: Computer hardware, Software, Telecommunications equipment and services, Support services services, Structures, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Among them, support services refer to digital-related education services, consulting services and computer repair services, which are only partially included in the statistics. Facilities and the Internet of Things are not included in the statistics.

(2) Digital-ordered transactions, also known as e-commerce. Statistics Canada uses the OECD (2011) definition of e-commerce as the buying and selling of goods or services over a computer network by means specifically designed for the purpose of receiving or placing orders. Goods or services must be ordered using the above methods, but their payment or final delivery need not be completed online.

Digital-delivered products: products created, delivered, accessed, or consumed in digital formats. Mainly digital media products such as films, videos, music and recordings, as well as partially digital products such as books, newspapers and magazines.

According to Statistics Canada, the digital economy was the ninth largest industry in the country UMC100 in 2015. The size of the digital economy in 2017 was $109.7 billion (based on nominal prices), accounting for 5.5% of the total economy. Between 2010 and 2017, the size of the digital economy grew by 40.2%, while GDP grew by 28%. With the exception of 2011 and 2017, when the energy sector grew strongly, the digital economy grew faster than the national economy as a whole.

In terms of industry segments, telecommunications and support services are the two largest sub-industries, accounting for 28.7% and 26.6% respectively in 2017, but the proportion of telecommunications decreased by 8.2 percentage points compared with 2010; E-commerce saw the fastest growth, with its share rising from 5.5% in 2010 to 12.4% in 2017. As shown in the following picture.

Figure 2010-2017 digital economy sector structure in Canada

Between 2010 and 2017, the number of jobs related to the digital economy in Canada grew by 37.0%, more than four times the national rate of job growth (8.6%). In 2017, 886,114 jobs (both paid and self-employed) were related to digital economy activity, accounting for 4.7% of all jobs. Among them, support services contributed the most jobs, accounting for 30.2%; This was followed by e-commerce, software and digital delivery products at 18.6%, 17.2% and 15.3% respectively. Hardware had the lowest employment contribution at 6.4%.