Contents
- Outdoor recreation employment statistics: national jobs and recent trends
- Outdoor recreation employment statistics by industry
- Outdoor recreation employment statistics across states
- Outdoor recreation employment statistics: historical estimates
- Outdoor recreation employment and compensation context
- Sources
Outdoor recreation employment statistics: national jobs and recent trends
Outdoor recreation supported approximately 5.2 million jobs in the United States in 2024, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The figure includes full- and part-time jobs attributed to outdoor recreation, as described in the BEA article’s key terms. It is a count of jobs, not a count of distinct people: one person may hold more than one job.
Employment in the sector increased 1.1% from 2023 to 2024. That annual change offers a useful recent benchmark, while the total gives a sense of the sector’s scale. Together, the figures show a large employment base that continued to grow in 2024, though the national percentage alone does not describe what happened in every industry or state.
Sources: BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Statistics for 2024”; BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Economic Statistics, U.S. and States, 2024”.
Outdoor recreation employment statistics by industry
Two broad industry groups accounted for most outdoor recreation employment in 2024. Arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food services supported approximately 2.1 million jobs, or 40.3% of the sector total. Retail trade supported approximately 1.8 million jobs, or 33.5%.
| Industry group | Outdoor recreation jobs in 2024 | Share of sector employment |
|---|---|---|
| Arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food services | Approximately 2.1 million | 40.3% |
| Retail trade | Approximately 1.8 million | 33.5% |
The percentages make the distribution easier to compare: these two groups together represented 73.8% of outdoor recreation employment. Their combined role also shows why the sector’s jobs extend beyond activities that take place outdoors. Retail and hospitality employment can be counted when it is tied to outdoor recreation under BEA’s accounting framework.
These are broad industry groupings, not counts for individual occupations or specific activities. The figures do not tell us how many people worked as guides, shop staff, lodging employees, or recreation facility workers. Nor should the two groups be treated as a complete industry breakdown; they are the largest shares highlighted in the cited BEA account.
Source: BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Statistics for 2024”.
Outdoor recreation employment statistics across states
The national increase did not mean employment rose everywhere. From 2023 to 2024, outdoor recreation employment increased in 36 states and the District of Columbia, while it declined in 14 states. The state count shows that growth was more common than decline, but the national total also includes the size of each state’s employment base; it is not an average of state growth rates.
The largest reported state increase was 4.3% in North Dakota. The largest decline was 4.0% in Hawaii. Those endpoints demonstrate the range of reported state changes, but they do not identify the typical state’s experience or explain why employment changed in either place.
| Geographic measure | Change from 2023 to 2024 |
|---|---|
| States with an employment increase | 36 |
| District of Columbia | Increase |
| States with an employment decline | 14 |
| Largest state increase: North Dakota | 4.3% |
| Largest state decline: Hawaii | −4.0% |
The state comparisons are percentage changes in outdoor recreation employment, not comparisons of total job counts. A smaller state can post a higher percentage increase than a state with many more jobs, and the largest percentage change does not necessarily represent the largest number of jobs added or lost. The cited release summarizes the state results; individual 2024 state job totals are not included here.
Sources: BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Economic Statistics, U.S. and States, 2024”; BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Statistics for 2024”.
Outdoor recreation employment statistics: historical estimates
Historical state estimates offer another view of employment scale, but the vintage matters. In the BEA table published in April 2024, outdoor recreation employment in 2022 was reported as 568,000 jobs in California, 466,000 in Florida, and 388,000 in Texas. These are full- and part-time employees, with the table expressed in thousands.
Florida and Texas also had reported 2021 estimates in that same publication vintage. Florida rose from 417,000 jobs in 2021 to 466,000 in 2022; Texas rose from 364,000 to 388,000. These comparisons describe the values shown in the April 2024 release, not a newly updated historical series. BEA revises prior-year estimates in later releases, so figures from different publication vintages should not be mixed as though they were drawn from one unchanged table.
For the United States as a whole, the April 2024 vintage reported that outdoor recreation employment increased 7.4% from 2021 to 2022. This is a historical annual change and should be read separately from the 1.1% increase from 2023 to 2024 reported in the later release. The figures cover different year-to-year intervals and publication vintages; together they do not establish a continuous growth path between 2022 and 2024.
| Geography | 2021 jobs | 2022 jobs |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | 417,000 | 466,000 |
| Texas | 364,000 | 388,000 |
| California | — | 568,000 |
California’s 2021 value is omitted because the cited evidence provides only its 2022 figure here. A dash does not mean there were no jobs. State totals are useful for comparing scale, while percentage changes answer a different question; neither alone captures job quality, hours worked, or seasonal patterns.
Sources: BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account: New Statistics for 2022 and Updated Statistics for 2017–2021”. The 2024 national change is from BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Economic Statistics, U.S. and States, 2024”.
Outdoor recreation employment and compensation context
Employment counts describe jobs; compensation figures add a separate measure of the labor income associated with them. In 2024, outdoor recreation compensation totaled $324.3 billion, while employment was approximately 5.2 million jobs. Compensation increased 5.2% from 2023 to 2024, a faster rate than the reported 1.1% increase in employment.
The BEA reported compensation of $308.3 billion in 2023 in its June 2026 publication. An earlier May 2025 article reported $269.6 billion in 2022. These nominal dollar amounts are useful as published context, but they come from different release vintages and are not adjusted here for inflation. They should not be used alone to infer changes in real pay, average earnings, or compensation per worker. Total compensation covers the sector’s jobs and may change with job counts, hours, pay, and the mix of work; the figures supplied do not isolate those components.
The gap between the 2024 growth rates is therefore descriptive rather than explanatory: total compensation grew more quickly than employment in that year, but these data do not establish the reason. For employment analysis, the job count and its annual change are the direct indicators; compensation provides a complementary measure of the sector’s labor income.
Sources: BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Statistics for 2024”; BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Economic Statistics, U.S. and States, 2024”; BEA, “Outdoor Recreation Statistics for 2023”.