2.6. Characteristics of the workforce
2.6.1. Status
Operational cleaning staff or blue-collar workers represent the biggest part of the workforce (around
86.2% in 2002). Managers, executives and technical and administrative staff are only a small part of the
workforce. The workforce in the traditional cleaning activities is mainly unskilled or low-skilled. The
sector is not very selective in terms of education and experience. It means that the cleaning sector may
offer employment opportunities to people who have difficulties in finding employment in other sectors
more demanding in terms of skills. However, this might progressively change in the years to come due
to a growing professionalism, diversification and specialisation of the cleaning activities. [9]
2.6.2. Gender
Women are the majority of the workforce in the sector. They represented about 77% of the total
workforce in the cleaning industry in 2006 [3]. Reasons can be sought in the nature of the activities –
society has traditionally considered cleaning activities as being a women’s job - but also in the fact that
the availability of part-time positions in the cleaning sector predominantly attracts women. Less than
one fourth (24%) of managers in the cleaning industry are women. [1]
2.6.3. Age of the workforce
As it is the case in all business segments, the share of older persons in the cleaning sector will
significantly rise from 2010 due to the ageing of the population in general. Little data on the age of the
workforce has been found. According to a Finnish article on the cleaning sector, 50% of the cleaners
were over 45 years old in Europe in 1999 [10]. In Belgium, about 27% of cleaners were older workers in
2005. The number of older workers increased on average by 1.3% per year from 2003 to 2005 [11].
2.6.4. Migrant workers
A large proportion of workers in the cleaning industry are migrant workers. In the European Union, the
estimation of their proportion in the workforce is around 30%. According to the EFCI survey, the
proportion of migrant workers is particularly high in Austria (70%) and Sweden (53%). [1]
Again, these numbers need to be treated with caution, as it is not clear from the EFCI survey whether
all EU countries (EU-15) were included in the statistics. Some of the candidate countries were included
in the figures. Further issues are not either entirely clear, for example whether second and third
generations are also included in the percentage of “immigrant employees” in the EFCI survey. This
means that it is impossible to understand the full complexity of the issue and to compare these national
data.