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Professional and Business Services
The administrative infrastructure that supports businesses with specialized skills

Professional Services Data and Trends

Professional Services Data and Trends

Trade Balance

The United States enjoyed a significant $114 billion trade surplus in professional and business services in 2019. This category of services encompasses many sectors, including legal, accounting, consulting, research and development, architecture and engineering, and advertising. U.S. exports in professional and business services reached $189 billion in 2019. Imports totaled $76 billion.

Line chart showing professional services exports, imports, and trade balance from 2010 to 2019.

Most U.S. trade in professional and business services is with Europe, which received 55 percent of U.S. exports in this industry in 2019.  About half of U.S. professional and business services imports came from Europe. The Asia-Pacific region attracted close to one-fourth of U.S. exports and accounted for 31 percent of U.S. imports. 

Pie chart showing U.S. professional services exports by region in 2019.
Pie chart showing U.S. professional services imports by region in 2019.

Employment and Wages

In 2019, over 9.3 million people worked in the professional and business services industry in the United States. Roughly 23 percent of those jobs were in the computer systems design and related services sector, which leads the industry in employment. Architecture and engineering and consulting services each employed 16 percent of individuals in this industry. These jobs may be either full-time or part-time. 

Bar chart showing U.S. employment in professional and business services by industry subsector in 2019.

The average annual wage across all professional and business services is relatively high at $85,720. The mean annual wage for each sector within this industry, as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, exceeded the average for all occupations of $53,490 in 2019. The bottom line is that U.S. jobs in professional services generally offer a very competitive wage compared with other sectors of the economy.

Bar chart showing mean annual U.S. wages in each industry subsector under professional and business services in 2019.

Access the full data for all of these charts.

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Global Business Navigator Chatbot Beta

Welcome to the Global Business Navigator, an artificial intelligence (AI) Chatbot from the International Trade Administration (ITA). This tool, currently in beta version testing, is designed to provide general information on the exporting process and the resources available to assist new and experienced U.S. exporters. The Chatbot, developed using Microsoft’s Azure AI services, is trained on ITA’s export-related content and aims to quickly get users the information they need. The Chatbot is intended to make the benefits of exporting more accessible by understanding non-expert language, idiomatic expressions, and foreign languages.

Limitations

As a beta product, the Chatbot is currently being tested and its responses may occasionally produce inaccurate or incomplete information. The Chatbot is trained to decline out of scope or inappropriate requests. The Chatbot’s knowledge is limited to the public information on the Export Solutions web pages of Trade.gov, which covers a wide range of topics on exporting. While it cannot provide responses specific to a company’s product or a specific foreign market, its reference pages will guide you to other relevant government resources and market research. Always double-check the Chatbot’s responses using the provided references or by visiting the Export Solutions web pages on Trade.gov. Do not use its responses as legal or professional advice. Inaccurate advice from the Chatbot would not be a defense to violating any export rules or regulations.

Privacy

The Chatbot does not collect information about users and does not use the contents of users’ chat history to learn new information. All feedback is anonymous. Please do not enter personally identifiable information (PII), sensitive, or proprietary information into the Chatbot. Your conversations will not be connected to other interactions or accounts with ITA. Conversations with the Chatbot may be reviewed to help ITA improve the tool and address harmful, illegal, or otherwise inappropriate questions.

Translation

The Chatbot supports a wide range of languages. Because the Chatbot is trained in English and responses are translated, you should verify the translation. For example, the Chatbot may have difficulty with acronyms, abbreviations, and nuances in a language other than English.

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