Lee County, AL has 1.6× fewer moving companies with employees per resident than the national average.
Lee County, AL has 3 household and office moving companies with employees — 0.2 per 10,000 residents, against a national rate of 0.3. That's 1.6× fewer than average (US Census, County Business Patterns 2023).
- In Lee County
- 3
- Per 10k residents
- 0.2
- National rate
- 0.3
- Ratio
- 1.6× fewer than average
Population 184,271. Ranked 2 of 8 Alabama counties with enough moving services data to compare — 1 = fewest per resident.
Source: US Census County Business Patterns ↗Lee County, AL has 2 fewer household and office moving companies with employees than in 2020 — 5 then, 3 now, down 40%. Nationally the count grew 12% over the same years.
Lee County moved against the national direction over these years. That is the part worth asking about locally — the data says it happened, not why.
What this doesn't tell you: Census counts how many exist each year, not how many opened or closed. A drop of 2 could be 2 closures — or 10 closures and 8 openings. It also can't see solo operators without employees, in any year.
Series runs 2020–2023. 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 484210 covers used-household-and-office-goods moving: local movers and long-distance van lines carrying furniture and belongings.
The blind spot: The code counts companies that own trucks and carry goods. Moving labor — supplying the people who load a truck the customer already rented — is a different business, and this number does not isolate it.
What this doesn't tell you: A low count can mean an opening — or that there's less local demand for it. This measures how many businesses exist, not how many customers want one, and it can't see solo operators without employees. Treat it as a lead to check, not a verdict.
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.
Fewer of these per resident than the country average is a reason to look, not a reason to start. The two explanations the data cannot separate are “nobody has served this yet” and “there is less to serve here” — a county with few pool services may simply have few pools. The next step is not a business plan, it is ten phone calls to people in Lee County who would pay for it.
Census counts these as one industry, so the 3 above includes all of them together. It cannot tell you how many are any single one.
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