According to 'Franchising Australia 2006 Survey', the personal services segment has experienced a massive growth of 89 percent since 2004. The strong rise in personal services stems from a full-employment economy where people are time poor but have higher disposable incomes. With this increased demand for services creating significant opportunities to franchise, many of the services covered by this segment are mobile and hence easier to recruit new franchisees due to the low start-up costs.

The time poor lifestyle can be explained by changing workforce patterns, particularly the increase in work travel time and the intensity of work itself, affecting the leisure time available to Australian consumers. As a result, a growing number of households are outsourcing a range of domestic duties and becoming more dependant on the services market.

Key services that are attracting ‘parents on the run’ include home cleaning, gardening and pet care. So as to buy themselves a better work-life balance, there has been a significant rise in the number of households taking advantage of these kinds of bought-in services.

Professor Barbara Pocock, Director of the Centre for Work & Life at the University of South Australia, claims that this time poor lifestyle is more common in families these days as a result of the increasing number of dual-earner couple households. ABS data reveals that the proportion of dual-earner couples in the population has increased over 20 percent in the last 30 years, with the proportion of dual-earner couples making up for over 60 percent of all married couples in Australia.

Work-life tensions in dual-income households suggest that life for many Australians is characterised by high levels of time pressure and stress. As people work harder, lifestyle becomes more important, especially given the lack of time in which to pursue lifestyle activities.

Nickolas James, international franchise advisor, agrees that people are time poor and cashed up and that’s what is driving this service business growth. Upon recently returning from Europe and the United States, he claims that this growth is not just evident in Australia, but a worldwide characteristic of the home service market. He believes that “people would rather pay someone else to do things people used to have to do for themselves” and hence why we’re seeing so much diversification in home services. Mr James says there are many home service franchises in Australia and abroad and with the ever-increasing demand of these services there is room still to develop many more ‘boutique’ style home service businesses.

“As the market in home service franchises becomes more mature and demanding, so to do consumers, so the there is a need for future franchise groups to attract the right quality of franchisees that will be business-minded and likely to employ the staff which will deliver the quality service to the customer” says Mr James.

The future is looking promising for the home service industry! According to BRW (July 2006), the growth phase and popularity of the service industry will be supported by the continued demand from consumers for a range of home services.