NAICS 561990Canadian industry · 6-digitlocal market

All other support services

This Canadian industry comprises establishments, not classified to any other Canadian industry, primarily engaged in providing support services. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 2,916
Under 10 employeesA: 71%
Establishments · USA: 12,668
Employment · USA: 176,554
Payroll · USA: $9.6B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–41,52052%

5–955719%

10–1947016%

20–492238%

50–99973%

100–199311%

200–499140%

500+40%

Of 2,916 Canadian establishments with employees, 71% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario1,26843%

Alberta50617%

British Columbia43715%

Quebec43315%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Administrative and Waste Services, US · opened 2020

79.4%

1 year

63.6%

3 years

51.5%

5 years

37%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 561, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

local competitionlow capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 561 Administrative and support services

Janitorial, landscaping, security and staffing: low capital and easy to start, so margins are competed down to labour cost. Route density and contract retention decide the outcome.

Who sets the price: Tender and the client's procurement; labour is most of the cost.
The software it runs on: Workforce scheduling, route and work-order management, staffing front and back office.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 5619 Other support services covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 5619

Other Support ServicesOne thing must be true

binding constraint: market size

A residual code holding packaging and labelling services, convention and trade show organisers, and a long tail of unlike activities. The screen's finding is that the code is not a market and cannot be screened as one. Packaging and labelling is contract work sold to manufacturers on price per unit against a machine's throughput; trade show organising is an events business whose economics are venue deposits and exhibitor deposits, and whose 2020–2021 revenue went to zero — a risk profile that belongs nowhere near the same screen. Anything genuinely attractive inside 5619 needs its own record at the four-digit-plus level, and this record exists to say so rather than to pretend a residual was assessed.

NAICS 56193 vendors named4 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Workforce scheduling, route and work-order management, staffing front and back office.

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Security guards and related security service occupations Mostly one sector 69.7%

Contractors and supervisors, agriculture, horticulture and related operations and services Mostly one sector 67.9%

Logging, forestry, landscaping and other related labourers Mostly one sector 56%

Water and rail transport operators and labourers and related occupations Mostly one sector 16.8%

Service supervisors Mostly one sector 14.2%

Tourism and amusement services occupations Mostly one sector 12.9%

Educational and employment counsellors Mostly one sector 8.5%

Logging and forestry workers Mostly one sector 6.4%

Labourers in processing, manufacturing and utilities Mostly one sector 6.3%

Roofers, glaziers, painters, decorators and floor covering installers One industry 4.7%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 29.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 15%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 13.5%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 6.6%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 5.1%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 4.8%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 4.5%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 4%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 4%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 3.9%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 71% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →