The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) has released an economic study confirming the vital role that the landscape and lawn care services industry plays in providing entrepreneurial opportunity, jobs and income to U.S. Latinos.
“This study clearly shows that the landscape and lawn care industry is a key creator of entrepreneurial opportunity for our community that is worthy of our strong support,” USHCC President & CEO Javier Palomarez said in a statement. “It is very much the kind of ‘low-entry-cost/high-sweat-equity’ industry that provides immigrants and first-generation Americans with a starting point and pathway into the mainstream economy.”
The study, titled “The Economic Impact of the Landscaping and Lawn Care Services Industry on U.S. Latinos” examines the landscaping and lawn care industry’s impact upon Latinos. It was conducted for the USHCC by the Inter-University Program on Latino Research, a national consortium of 27 independent and university-based centers headquartered at the University of Notre Dame and dedicated to increasing the availability of policy-relevant, Latino-focused research. Among the study’s key findings are:
- The total household income of households with at least one worker in the landscaping industry totals almost $75 billion. Latino households with at least one worker in the industry obtain more than $18 billion in household income.
- The landscape industry in the United States employs almost 1.6 million workers and generates almost 959,000 jobs in other industries. In total, Latinos account for more than 830,000 of the workers in both categories.
- For Latinos, the landscape and lawn care industry is an important source of employment. The share of Latino employment in the industry is 2.6 times higher than the national average. Specifically, the data shows that while Latinos represent 13.4% of all U.S. workers, they represent 35.2% of all workers in landscape and lawn care services industry.
- The landscaping and lawn care industry provides disproportionately more income to Latino households than the overall economy provides to Latinos. It also provides disproportionately more income to Latinos than it does to other population groups participating in the landscape and lawn care industry. The data reveals that 8.3% of the household income across the total U.S. economy is attributable to Latinos while nearly 25% of the household income within the landscape and lawn care industry is attributable to Latinos.
- The landscape and lawn care services industry provides a strong source of entrepreneurial opportunity to Latinos. The proportion of businesses owned by Latinos in the industry is almost double the national average for all industries with Latinos accounting for over 16% of the business owners in the industry (versus 8.6% of the businesses nationwide).
- Latino-owned businesses in the landscape and lawn care industry capture 7.5 times more of the total receipts than Latino-owned businesses across all industries with the landscape and lawn care industry reflecting an approximate 9% of total industry receipts vs. 1.2% of total receipts across all industries.
Juan Carlos Guzman, who led the research effort for the IUPLR, said that U.S. Census figures do not capture family and sole-proprietor businesses in the industry and may, as a result, not fully reflect the scope of Latino ownership and involvement in the industry.
The report also includes insights from telephone interviews conducted with both Latino and non-Latino supervisors and employees in the landscape and lawn care industry from across the country.
California, Texas, and Florida account for one-third of all the Latino workers employed in the landscape and lawn care services industry. Sixteen states, including California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, New Mexico, Illinois, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Delaware, Florida, Utah, Maryland, Georgia, and Washington, all have Latino worker participation rates in the landscape and lawn care industry at twice or more the national average of Latino worker participation across all industries.
The full report can be downloaded here, free of charge.
