National Clothesline

A slow but steady ten-year decline in the number of drycleaning establishments can be seen in recently released figures from U.S Department of Commerce.

The economic census, taken every five years, counted 26,093 drycleaning establishments in 2007, a seven percent decline from the total of 27,939 in 1997. The decline has been steady; about half of it occurred in the five-year interval between the 1997 and 2002 censuses. The numbers don’t take into account the effects of the recession which economists generally agree began in December 2007.

Even without the current recession taken into account, the numbers for the industry don’t look particularly good. Receipts for the industry totaled $8 billion in 2007, a full one billion more than a decade ago. But that 14 percent increase lagged far behind the general inflation rate of 30 percent over the ten-year period. And in the five years from 2002 to 2007, gross receipts increased just over four percent, a period when the inflation rate was nearly 16 percent.

Viewed on a per-plant basis, the numbers are a little better. In 1997, the average receipts per plant was $253,840. Two years ago, thanks to fewer plants dividing a larger pie, the average per plant was $310,060, a 22 percent increase.

One thing working to the benefit of the bottom line is that total payroll has held relatively steady, increasing just six percent over the ten-year span to about $2.7 billion in 2007; payroll as a percentage of receipts dropped from over 36 percent in 1997 to under 34 percent in 2007. At the same time, the average number of employees per establishment fell from 7.29 to 6.5.

While drycleaning establishments represent the majority of firms in the broader laundry and drycleaning services category, the census also counts coin-operated laundries, linen and uniform supply firms, and industrial launderers. The aggregate total of all these in 2007 was 39,484 with total revenues of $23.4 billion. As with the drycleaning sector, these totals show both a decline in the number of establishments and an increase in total receipts since 1997.

Other sectors comprising the 39,484 firms include industrial laundries, linen and uniform supply and coin-operated laundries and drycleaners.

While the five-year census provides a useful measure of industry changes, it can’t be taken as a complete tally of the industry. Many businesses are not even counted. Non-employers, which the government defines as businesses that had no paid employees during the census year, are not included in the data.

The census bureau has no numbers to indicate how many such firms exist in the drycleaning business, although in the broader “Personal and Laundry Services” category — which includes beauty, barber and nail shops, one-hour photo finishing, “death care” services and a huge number of “other” services —non-employer businesses number in the millions.

Also, some small employers are not included in the survey; the department derives data for these from administrative records of other federal agencies.

The census is designed to provide a detailed portrait of the nation's economy, from the national to the local level, covering nearly all of the U.S. economy in its collection of establishment statistics. Census forms were mailed to more than 5 million companies in late 2007 with each form customized to particular industries.

The economic census was first taken in 1810, but the regular five-year cycle did not begin until 1967. Over the years, methods of tallying and classifying the data have been adjusted, but it is still possible to get a statistical historical overview by looking at the numbers.

For example, in 1967 the census counted 30,625 drycleaning plants. That fell to 28,422 five years later as the infamous "Polyester Recession" kicked in. The number of plants continued to decline before bottoming out at 21,257 in the 1987 census.

The two censuses conducted in the 1990s showed growth in the number of plants. The 2002 census was the first to show the decline that has continued into the most recent tally.