Career Trends: Grounds Maintenance Workers

Grounds maintenance workers ensure that the grounds of houses, businesses, and parks are attractive, orderly, and healthy in order to provide a pleasant outdoor environment.

Many grounds maintenance jobs are seasonal, available mainly in the spring, summer, and fall. Most of the work is done outdoors in all weather conditions. The work can be repetitive and physically demanding, requiring frequent bending, kneeling, lifting, and shoveling.

Most grounds maintenance workers need no formal education and are trained on the job. Most states require licensing for workers who apply pesticides or fertilizers.

Employment of grounds maintenance workers is projected to grow 6 percent from 2014 to 2024, about as fast as the average for all occupations. More workers will be needed to keep up with increasing demand for lawn care and landscaping services from large institutions and individual homeowners. Job prospects should be very good.

This occupation supported 1,227,000 jobs in 2012 and 1,281,900 jobs in 2014, reflecting an increase of 4.5%. In 2012, this occupation was projected to increase by 12.6% in 2022 to 1,381,300 jobs. As of 2014, to keep pace with prediction, the expected number of jobs was 1,257,800, compared with an observed value of 1,281,900, 1.9% higher than expected. This indicates current employment trends are about on track with the 2012 trend within this occupation. In 2014, this occupation was projected to increase by 6.3% in 2024 to 1,359,699 jobs. Linear extrapolation of the 2012 projection for 2022 results in an expected number of 1,412,100 jobs for 2024, 3.9% higher than the 2014 projection for 2024. This indicates expectations for future employment trends are worse than the 2012 trend within this occupation.