Cook County, IL has about as many cleaning and janitorial businesses with employees per resident as the national average.
Cook County, IL has 1044 janitorial and cleaning services with employees — 2.0 per 10,000 residents, about the national rate of 2.0 (US Census, County Business Patterns 2023).
- In Cook County
- 1044
- Per 10k residents
- 2.0
- National rate
- 2.0
- Ratio
- About the national rate
Population 5,142,522. Ranked 35 of 49 Illinois counties with enough cleaning services data to compare — 1 = fewest per resident.
Source: US Census County Business Patterns ↗Cook County, IL had 1049 janitorial and cleaning services with employees in 2017 and 1044 in 2023 — little changed. Nationally the count grew 14% over the same years.
What this doesn't tell you: Census counts how many exist each year, not how many opened or closed. A count that barely moves can still hide plenty of churn underneath it. It also can't see solo operators without employees, in any year.
Series runs 2017–2023. Earlier vintages exist but are not comparable: Census changed which small counties it publishes after 2016, so including them would show counties losing an industry that never left.
Census code 561720 covers janitorial and cleaning services — everything from commercial office-cleaning contractors to residential house-cleaning companies, counted as one industry.
The blind spot: This code is dominated by commercial janitorial contractors cleaning offices on contract, which is a different business from cleaning houses. A high count can mean the county has plenty of office cleaners and very few residential ones.
County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees. A solo operator with no payroll — the most likely competitor for most of these businesses — is invisible to it, in every county, including this one.
Cook County sits close to the national rate for this category, which means this number is not an argument in either direction. Supply here looks ordinary. If you want to start this business, the case has to come from something this measurement cannot see — pricing, service quality, or a neighbourhood nobody covers.
Census counts these as one industry, so the 1044 above includes all of them together. It cannot tell you how many are any single one.
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