Facility Services: An Underestimated Sector?

Abstract

Facility Services (FS) are defined as "support provision to the primary activities of an organisation, delivered by an internal or external provider" by the European norm 15221-1 (British Standards 2007) They are not presented as one whole industry sector in the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE). As most reports are based on this classification, there are hardly any reports covering the FS sector. The aim of this article is to provide this missing information by researching the FS sector:

The economical indicators "value added at factor cost" and "employment" of the FS industry are analysed after the recession of 2008/2009 until 2016 in different European countries. Base of the research are EU statistics (Eurostat) and European norms: The European standard EN 15221-4 lists all activities that are considered FS. Eurostat includes economic activities on the most detailed level of NACE. The activities of Eurostat are compared to the activities of the EN 15221-4 and the relevant subindustries are selected. They are used to determine the size of the whole FS industry. The indicators are compared to the rest of economy.

Results show that 10% of employees in non-financial business economy in the EU work in the FS sector. The FS sector is very steady during and after recession. The reason for that is that services such as janitorial work, maintenance, waste management, specialized cleaning, water and steam and air conditioning supply have to be kept running, even during a crisis. At the same time employees in FS will be able to keep their job which is important for the purchasing power in a country.