2022 Franchising Economic Outlook

Franchising had an exceptional year in 2021, and 2022 looks to be another strong year of recovery. Bolstered by both the strengthening labor market and steady consumer spending, franchising is expected to continue to expand, trending upwards with the United States’ overall economic progression, but the pace of the growth in 2022 is most likely to moderate, due to the current headwinds in the economy. Some key predictions for 2022 include:

• Franchises’ GDP contribution to the overall economy will remain stable at 3% in 2022, but the growth rate is likely to slow to 5.7%, still higher than the pre-pandemic level, to a total of $501 billion.
• Franchise employment is forecast to grow at a slightly lower rate of 3.1% to a total of 8.5 million jobs, a net gain of almost 257,000 jobs compared to 2021.
• The output of franchise businesses in nominal dollars is forecast to improve by 4.9% to $826.6 billion in 2022.
• We forecast that franchising will end the year with more than 792,000 establishments, adding a net gain of 17,000 new locations, with a marginally lower growth rate of 2.2%.