Whether they’re a consultant, an accountant or a marketing specialist, those who work in Business services have the ability to impact every company in some way. This industry includes any intangible services that benefit companies without supplying physical products, such as IT infrastructure, legal advice, food service for an industry event, insurance coverage and waste management.
Because of the nature of this industry, it’s difficult to quantify employment numbers or overall size. The US business services sector comprises about 420,000 establishments, which are single-location businesses or units of multi-site companies. This segment of the economy is critical to the success of other industries and contributes over half of the country’s GDP.
It’s important to understand the difference between Business services and other sectors of the economy. For globalEDGE’s purposes, all work related to money and assets that a business needs is filed under Financial Services, while all miscellaneous help a business may need is filed under Business Services.
For example, a small landscaping or pest control business would be classified under Business Services, but the transportation industry (shipping and logistics) is filed in Transport Manufacturing.
In general, this category of businesses are not highly regulated and have low barriers to entry. As such, these sectors are competitive and offer a variety of options for those interested in pursuing a career in this field. As a result, some segments of this industry have lower unemployment rates than others. For more information, please see the Employment by major industry sector table.
