Facility Services Among Most Stable Spending Categories During Pandemic

The commercial cleaning industry remained stable during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a 2020 Home Service Economic report released late last week from Jobber.

Looking at data from all of 2020, the report found commercial cleaning outperformed residential cleaning. Residential cleaning was the industry most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, while commercial cleaning contract work was comparatively stable.

Although cleaning and other services in the home service industry experienced a significant decline in year-over-year growth in March and April due to stay-at-home orders across the U.S., overall, the industry ended the year exceeding pre-pandemic growth levels. According to the report, median revenue in home service sector saw consistent, positive growth beginning in June and reached a record high for the year in December with 23% growth year-over-year.

“When the COVID-19 pandemic hit back in March, we weren’t sure how our customers’ businesses would perform,” said Abheek Dhawan, VP, Business Operations at Jobber. “Although service businesses experienced record declines at the onset of the pandemic, they managed to weather the storm rather effectively to end 2020 on a positive note.”

Other key finding from the report included:

• Digital work requests saw accelerated growth through 2020 after a decline in March and April. The study also found an increase in electronic customer communication in the form of visit reminders, which saw 30% year-over year growth in April and May, despite actual visits declining during this period. 
• Sparked by renewed homeowner interest to improve indoor and outdoor living spaces, consumer spending in home services such as cleaning out-performed most major categories in the second half of 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.