August 19, 2022
Majority-owned U.S. affiliates (MOUSAs) of foreign multinational enterprises employed 7.86 million workers in the United States in 2020, a 2.8 percent decrease from 8.08 million workers in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. MOUSAs accounted for 6.4 percent of total private industry employment in the United States in 2020.
Highlights of the statistics on MOUSAs in 2020:
- Current-dollar value added of MOUSAs, a measure of their direct contribution to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), decreased 7.0 percent to $1.1 trillion. MOUSAs accounted for 6.8 percent of total U.S. business-sector value added.
- Expenditures for property, plant, and equipment by MOUSAs decreased 4.7 percent to $281.8 billion. MOUSAs accounted for 17.6 percent of total U.S. private business capital expenditures.
- Research and development (R&D) performed by MOUSAs increased 3.0 percent to $71.4 billion. MOUSAs accounted for 14.1 percent of total U.S. business R&D in 2019, the latest year for which all-U.S. business R&D data are available.
- By state, private-industry employment accounted for by MOUSAs was highest in South Carolina (9.4 percent), Hawaii (9.4 percent), and Michigan (9.1 percent).
The full economic effects of the COVID–19 pandemic cannot be quantified in the statistics, because the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified.
For more information, read the full release.