Services
USITC Analyzes Market Conditions and Outlook for Professional Services in Annual Services Report
The United States remained the world’s largest services market and was the world’s leading exporter and importer of services in 2023*, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in its new publication, Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade: 2025 Annual Report. The U.S. services sector also continued to be the largest sector of the U.S. economy.
The USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, compiles the report annually. Each year’s report presents a qualitative and quantitative overview of U.S. trade in services and highlights some of the services sectors and geographic markets that significantly contribute to recent services trade performance.
This year’s report focuses on trade in professional services, including accounting and auditing, advertising, architecture and engineering, education, legal, and management consulting services. The report includes a special topic section on research and development services, as well as two thematic chapters.
- The first thematic chapter focuses on how skills gaps and the introduction of new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), are affecting the competitiveness of professional services suppliers.
- The second indicates how changing demographics, including aging and income growth, in advanced and emerging markets; businesses’ ongoing digitalization; and the move by many manufacturing firms to reorganize their supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic are driving demand for certain professional services after the pandemic.
In recent years, professional services suppliers, such as those listed below, have adopted new technologies to improve productivity, lower costs, and address increased constraints in skilled labor supply.
- Accounting and Auditing Services: Firms are using new technologies and outsourcing or offshoring to improve productivity and lower costs. Firms are reducing the cost of supplying these services by automating and importing lower-skilled tax and auditing functions, while driving revenue growth through higher-value advisory services.
- Architecture and Engineering Services: Firms have had difficulties in hiring and retaining skilled workers, and in response some are offering mentorship, internship opportunities, and flexible work schedules. New technologies like AI, building information modeling, and drone surveillance are increasingly used for design, risk assessment, 3D modeling, and other applications.
- Legal Services: New technologies have led to the growth of lower-priced and more technically sophisticated alternative legal services providers and legal technology companies. U.S. firms supplying legal services in foreign markets are using technology to increase efficiency but are also facing complex regulatory environments.
The demand for professional services in the following sectors reflects changing demographics and expanding digitalization.
- Advertising Services: This industry has seen a sharp decline in demand for linear television content and a sharp rise in demand for video streaming services content. Firms are also seeing growing demand for content developed for social media platforms, and increasingly use AI technologies to target consumers more effectively.
- Education Services: Many U.S. universities have sought to attract international students to boost declining domestic enrollments and offset funding shortfalls. The international branch campuses of some U.S. universities have struggled to enroll enough students or attract adequate financing, with many such campuses closing in recent years.
- Management Consulting Services: Demand has been driven by the need for assistance in dealing with technological advancements and shifts in workplace habits, along with supply chain optimization and sustainability initiatives. Traditional consulting firms have been impacted by rising competition from IT firms, small niche companies, and freelance consulting platforms.
The USITC hosted its 18th annual services roundtable on October 30, 2024. The discussion, summarized in the report, focused on how widespread workforce gaps and aging demographics are affecting U.S. services industries, how some graduates of U.S. schools and universities are struggling to find employment within the first two years, and how AI is expected to augment or replace many tasks in professional services, among other topics.
Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade: 2025 Annual Report (Inv. No. 332-605, USITC Publication 5643, July 2025) is available on the USITC website. An interactive dashboard supplements the report.
*The latest year available for cross-border services trade data is 2023; the latest year available for affiliate sales and purchases data is 2022.
U.S. Services Providers Remain Competitive in the Global Services Market, Reports USITC
The United States is the world's largest services market and was the world’s leading exporter and importer of services in 2013, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in its new publication Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2015 Annual Report.
The USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, compiles the report annually. Each year's report presents a qualitative and quantitative overview of U.S. trade in services and highlights some of the service sectors and geographic markets that contribute substantially to recent services trade performance.
This year’s report focuses on distribution services and includes chapters on three specific industries: logistics services, maritime transport services, and retail services. Each chapter analyzes global market conditions in the industry, examines recent trade performance, and summarizes the industry’s outlook.
The report describes trade in services and its two main components -- cross-border transactions and affiliate sales. Highlights include:
- In 2013, the value of U.S. commercial services exports was $662.0 billion (14 percent of global services exports), while imports totaled $431.5 billion (10 percent of global services imports). Preliminary data for 2014 indicate that U.S. commercial services exports exceeded those in 2013 by 3.4 percent, or $22.7 billion, whereas U.S. imports were 4.1 percent higher ($7.7 billion) in 2014 than in 2013.
- From 2012 to 2013, U.S. cross-border services exports rose 5.1 percent (up from 5 percent in 2012), while U.S. services imports grew 3 percent (down from 4.5 percent in 2012). Distribution services accounted for 7 percent of exports and 14 percent of imports, resulting in a trade deficit of $13.6 billion in this subsector in 2013.
- Within the services sector, sales by foreign affiliates of U.S. firms -- the leading channel by which many U.S. services are delivered to foreign markets -- rose by 3.7 percent to almost $1.3 trillion in 2012. In 2012, top markets for sales by U.S.-owned affiliates were the United Kingdom (15 percent), Canada (10 percent), and Japan and Ireland (6 percent each). Distribution services accounted for $399.1 billion, or 31 percent, of the total.
- In 2013, private sector distribution services contributed $2.3 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) and accounted for nearly 17 percent of total U.S. private sector GDP. The output of these services grew by 1.7 percent in 2013, slightly slower than the GDP growth in the private sector (2.2 percent). Among the distribution services industries, the GDP of maritime transport services grew the fastest in 2013 at 9.4 percent, followed by retail trade (2.4 percent), wholesale trade (1.6 percent), and logistics services (0.8 percent).
- The distribution services sector was one of the most important contributors to U.S. private sector employment in 2013. Overall, distribution services accounted for more than 21 percent of total private sector employment, or 23 million full-time equivalent (FTE) employees -- a share that has remained stable since 2008. Employment in retail services represented 57 percent of this total, followed by wholesale services (24 percent), logistics services (18 percent), and maritime transport services (0.3 percent). Labor productivity in distribution services grew at a steady, but modest pace during 2008–13, with an average output per worker of $98,370 in 2013.
- Since trade in distribution services is driven by consumer demand, fluctuations in income and consumer spending can have profound effects on the health of the industry. The global economic recession of 2008–09 caused revenue declines for the majority of distribution providers. Further, as global economies become more integrated, the distribution services industry has needed to evolve rapidly to address issues such as shifting global supply chains (i.e., “near-shoring”), advances in digital technology (i.e., e-commerce), and rising cost competition across all factors of production and distribution (i.e., transport and inventory costs). Most notably, technology has increasingly enabled manufacturers to bypass traditional wholesalers and retailers. Consequently, distribution services suppliers have grown more adaptive as supply chains compress and the use of Internet technologies to purchase goods increases.
- The USITC hosted its eighth annual services roundtable on October 16, 2014. The discussion, summarized in the report, focused on services trade in sub-Saharan Africa, ongoing international trade in services negotiations, and the assessment of services commitments.
Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2015 Annual Report (Investigation No. 332-345, USITC publication 4526, May 2015) is available on the USITC's Internet site at http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4526.pdf.
U.S. Service Providers Remain Competitive in Global Services Market, Reports USITC
U.S. Services Exports Grew by 9 percent from 2009-2010
The United States remained the world's largest services market and the world's leading exporter and importer of services in 2010, reports the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in its publication Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2012 Annual Report.
The USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, compiles the report annually. Each year's report presents an overview of U.S. trade in services and highlights some of the service sectors and geographic markets that contributed substantially to recent services trade performance.
This year's report focuses on infrastructure services, such as banking and telecommunications, which are essential to a country's overall economic growth and development and are used by every firm regardless of economic sector. The report also includes separate chapters on specific industries (banking, insurance, logistics, retail, securities, and telecommunications). These chapters analyze global competitive conditions in the industry, examine recent trade performance, discuss non-tariff measures that affect trade, and summarize the industry's outlook.
The 2012 report covers cross-border trade in services through 2010 and affiliate sales through 2009. Highlights of the report follow.
- From 2009 to 2010, U.S. cross-border services exports increased by 9 percent (to $518 billion) while U.S. services imports grew by 6 percent (to $358 billion). This represented a recovery from the previous year, when exports and imports of services fell following the financial crisis. Infrastructure services accounted for 25 percent of total U.S. cross-border services exports and 37 percent of cross-border imports in 2010.
- Services supplied abroad by foreign affiliates of U.S. firms continued to exceed services purchased from U.S. affiliates of foreign firms, reaching $1.1 trillion and $669 billion, respectively, in 2009. Infrastructure services accounted for 60 percent of both sales and purchases of services through affiliates.
- The value added (i.e., the output minus the cost of inputs) by U.S. infrastructure services in 2010 was $3.8 trillion, equal to 43 percent of the value added by all services and 34 percent of total private sector GDP. This figure had declined in previous years as the financial crisis and ensuing recession weakened demand, but the sector's value added in 2010 represented 6 percent growth over the previous year.
- Infrastructure services employed 30 million full-time-equivalent employees in 2010, equal to 30 percent of the total U.S. private sector workforce. Retail services accounted for 13 million of these employees. In 2010, labor productivity in infrastructure services grew by 7 percent while average annual wages grew by 4 percent (to $56,000), exceeding the private sector average wage but trailing wages in goods manufacturing and professional services. Both productivity and wages varied widely among infrastructure services industries.
- Regulation is a recurring theme among infrastructure services industries covered in this year's report. For example, financial reforms enacted in 2010 affected the banking, insurance, and securities services industries. Such regulations aim to address the potential negative effects of providing services and to meet economic and social objectives. However, regulations can also represent non-tariff measures that impede the ability of services providers to enter and operate in markets.
- The outlook for growth in each infrastructure service industry is, for the most part, dependent on the overall level of economic growth, although factors such as regulatory reform, technological innovation, and market access will also have a major impact. Joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions are likely to increase as a way for firms to reduce costs and enter foreign markets. Market access will be increasingly important to the banking, logistics, and retail industries, which anticipate faster demand growth in developing countries than in developed countries.
- The USITC hosted its fifth annual services roundtable on November 3, 2011. The discussion, summarized in the report, covered multilateral and regional trade negotiations, ways to harmonize services regulations, and services industries' contributions to global economic activity.
Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2012 Annual Report (Investigation No. 332-345, USITC publication 4338, July 2012) is available on the USITC's Internet site at http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4338.pdf.