Industry Stats and Trends

Collision repairers seeing fewer totals, longer backlogs of work, more labor hours per repair job

By John Yoswick

Wondering how what you’re seeing at your shop compares to others? Curious about what’s happening within the industry as a whole? Here’s our annual round-up of some collision industry stats and trends.

Shop population stable

Consolidation advocates often talk about how dramatically the total number of body shops in the United State has declined, and how that pace of decline will only accelerate in the coming years. The statistics don’t back that up, however.

The latest Census Bureau data shows the total number of independent (non-dealer) collision repair facilities in the United States stood at 35,306 in 2019, essentially unchanged over the prior two years. The number of independent repair facilities peaked in 2005 at 36,529. The recession, however, caused that count to fall by more than 3,000 to a low of 33,386 in 2011. In the years since, the opening of new independent repair facilities has put the industry back to within about 1,200 shop locations of the all-time high.

Looking at the change over the prior 10 years of data …

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