Across the nation, there are approximately 65,000 independent
auto body shops and about 25,000 new car dealers,
some of which also have body repair shops (Standard
Industrial Classification codes 7531 and 5511). Based on
mailing lists obtained from yellow pages and cross-checked
with regulatory data, there are about 2,350 firms which do
body repair work and/or paint cars in Massachusetts. This
number fluctuates due to the ease of entry by new firms and
business failures (estimated to be between 100 and 200 each
year). Body work is also done at vocational schools and by
fleet operators of vehicles.