The Outsourced Facility Service Industry: A Profitable Industry?

Studies showed that the Facility Service (FS) sector is stable during a recession. This accounts mainly for employment. The side of companies has not been researched enough. The research question is: How did profits, revenue, and the number of companies in the FS sector develop in the three largest economies in the EU between 2008 and 2019? A list of all services that are Facility Services (FS) is presented in the European standard EN 15221-4. This list of services is matched to the list of the economic activities from Eurostat to estimate the FS industry size. The gross operating surplus, turnover, and the number of companies are selected as measures. The business economy as a whole is used as a relation to make comparisons possible. The FS sector is characterized by a huge number of companies operating in the market. While the share of profits in turnover is higher in the FS sector than in the business economy, turnover and profits per company are smaller than in the non-financial business economy. During the financial crisis of 2008/09, profits and turnover decreased less in the FS sector than in the business economy. This leads to the assumption that the FS sector is quite stable but also competitive.