Whether you run a hotel, a warehouse, or a medical office, keeping every floor and restroom clean depends on people who reliably show up. At General Workforce, we place janitorial and cleaning crews with New York employers, so we follow the numbers behind that demand closely. These cleaning industry statistics show how large the market has grown, who does the work, and what it means when you need to hire cleaning staff.
Each figure below comes from federal labor data or published market research, and each one is paired with what it means for an employer in practice. Use them to plan budgets, set pay, and decide how much hiring help your cleaning team needs.
How Big the Cleaning Industry Is in 2026
Fortune Business Insights values the global cleaning services market at $451.63 billion in 2025 and projects it will reach $481.75 billion in 2026. That forecast has the market growing at a 7.5% compound annual rate to $859.20 billion by 2034.
North America held 37.52% of the global market in 2025, so U.S. employers compete for cleaning talent in the largest single region. For a New York business, steady growth means more building owners, hotels, and hospitals hiring for the same crews you need, which makes a dependable staffing partner a real advantage.
Cleaning Industry Employment, Pay, and Where the Work Is
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 2,432,600 janitors and building cleaners in 2025, with a median wage of $17.71 an hour, or $36,840 a year. That median wage is the pay benchmark your own offers get compared against.
Most of that work sits in a few places. Services to buildings and dwellings employ 35% of janitors and building cleaners, educational services employ 17%, and healthcare and social assistance employ 7%. Hospitality draws on the same labor pool, and our breakdown of hotel staff roles shows how many positions depend on a clean property. Wherever the building sits, the hiring need looks much the same.
The job requires no formal educational credential, which lets employers fill roles quickly when they have a screened candidate pool. Growth is projected at only 2% from 2025 to 2035, yet about 321,800 openings are expected each year. Because that growth adds just 53,600 jobs over the decade, nearly all of those openings come from replacing workers who retire or move on.
Commercial vs. Residential Cleaning Statistics
The same Fortune Business Insights report expects the commercial segment to hold 80.53% of the global cleaning services market in 2026, while the residential segment is expected to grow fastest. Commercial buildings run on schedules, contracts, and inspections, so the crews behind them need to be consistent.
Warehouses show what that looks like on the ground. A distribution center needs machine floor scrubbing, dock cleanup, and restroom turnover on every shift, and our guide to cleaning and sanitizing a warehouse walks through those routines. Restaurants, schools, and hospitals add their own demands, such as sanitizing food-prep surfaces and disinfecting high-touch areas, and each one calls for trained, reliable people.
Cleaning Staff Retention
Keeping a crew together is the hard part. In the 2023 In-House/Facility Management Benchmarking Survey from CMM (Cleaning & Maintenance Management), employee retention ranked as the largest staffing concern at 35%, ahead of employee health and safety at 31%. Every departure sends a manager back to recruiting, screening, and training.
The same survey found that 33% of respondents paid entry-level cleaners $14.00 to $16.99 an hour, while 27% paid experienced cleaners more than $20 an hour. Pay gaps like that can pull workers toward better-paid openings, so a steady pipeline of pre-screened candidates protects your schedule.
What These Cleaning Industry Statistics Mean for Employers
Taken together, the numbers point one way: demand for cleaning labor is steady, and the people doing the work change often. With roughly 321,800 openings a year nationwide, a business that hires once and hopes for the best will be back in the hiring cycle soon. A staffing partner keeps a screened bench ready, so one vacancy never turns into a week of dirty restrooms.
Temporary work also gives you a safer way to hire. We treat it as a paid internship: you watch a cleaner on the job, judge reliability and attention to detail, and then decide on a permanent offer. That trial period removes much of the guesswork that drives turnover in the first place.
How General Workforce Staffs Cleaning and Janitorial Crews
As a New York State MBE-certified firm serving employers since 2005, we treat every client as a strategic partner. Our office in South Ozone Park, Queens, supports employers across New York. Our five-step hiring process includes candidate screening and skill profiling, with background checks and drug testing completed before anyone reaches your site.
Transportation and Payroll Handled for You
We provide transportation for our workers to and from your site, which cuts down on lateness for early and overnight cleaning shifts. We also run payroll, handle payroll taxes, and manage workers’ compensation and insurance, so your accounting team sees one invoice instead of a stack of individual records.
Legal Indemnification and Round-the-Clock Support
Employers are fully indemnified for the workers we place, which takes a real compliance concern off your list. Cleaning often happens at night or before opening, so we stay responsive beyond a standard 9-to-5, and a call-out never has to wait until morning.
Frequently Asked Questions About Cleaning Industry Statistics
What are the current trends in the cleaning industry?
The clearest trend is that demand keeps rising while keeping crews stays hard: the market is forecast to grow 7.5% a year, and retention tops the staffing worries. If you hire cleaners, plan for turnover from day one and build a screened bench through temp-to-perm placement.
What type of cleaning makes the most money?
Commercial cleaning holds the largest slice of the market, at 80.53% of global cleaning services in 2026, but that measures market share rather than profit per job, so judge any segment by contract size, repeat business, and how reliably you can staff it.
How many people work in the cleaning industry?
Federal data counts 2,432,600 janitors and building cleaners, a figure that leaves out maids, housekeepers, and other cleaning occupations, so the full industry is larger. If you are sizing the local labor pool, treat that number as a floor.
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