The Impact of the Financial Crisis of 2008/09 on Employment in the Outsourced Facility Service Sector in the US

Abstract

Facility Services (FS) are not listed as one whole industry sector in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Many industry reports are based on this system, and as a consequence, there are not enough reports about the FS sector. This leads to a lack of transparency in the sector. This article tries to close that gap by answering the following research questions: How did employment in the outsourced FS sector develop from 2008 to 2019 and what is the impact of the financial crisis of 2008/09 on the outsourced FS sector? Results show that in 2019 the total FS sector employed more than 9 million people. This means that more than 9% of all employees in the business economy worked in the FS sector. The largest industry sector in 2019 in the business economy in the US were accommodation and food services. FS take place five in the industry ranking. The outsourced FS sector, as well as the business economy constantly increased since 2010. While the business economy increased by 16%, the outsourced FS sector increased by 24.5%. After the financial crises of 2008/09, the FS sector and business economy decreased in 2009 and 2010. The share of FS in the business economy shows that FS declined slightly less than the business economy after the recession. This phenomenon has already been observed in Europe (Redlein, Stopajnik 2021). Reasons for that are that many FS like maintenance works are essential and must be carried out even during a crisis.