A truly definitive report on the size of the franchise industry has been published and it tells us a lot about franchising in 2010.
The US Census Bureau has been looking at American businesses since 2007. Franchising makes up 10.5% of the US economy. They found that, after assessing 4.3 million establishments in 295 industries, that America has 453,326 franchisee or franchisor owned businesses.
If you’re interested in a franchisor-owned vs a franchisee-owned breakdown: 77.4% of the businesses are franchisee-owned, which create $1.1 trillion in sales, $125.1 billion in annual payroll and employ almost 6.3 million workers. Franchisor-owned businesses meanwhile make $210.4 billion in sales, $28.6 billion in payroll and employ 1.6 million people.
The information is available thanks to a collaboration between the IFA and the US Census Bureau. It’s great work by the IFA to create such a comprehensive document using one of the most comprehensive polling systems we have: the Census.
"We are pleased that the U.S. government has recognized franchising as a significant business model," said Alisa Harrison, spokesperson for the IFA told International Business Times. "Census officials told us they received a very good response to their franchise questions and so we feel we have a fairly accurate snapshot of franchises with paid employees."