Employment
386,187
Total employees (Census CBP)
Administrative and Support and Waste Management ·NAICS 56142
NAICS 56142 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
Telephone Call Centers - Industry Benchmarks
$38,852/yr average annual pay, with 78 SBA loans on record for NAICS 56142.
- 3.9%
- Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector margin
- 386K
- Workers employed
- $38,852/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $46M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · NAICS 56142
Texas leads Telephone Call Centers activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector runs a 3.9% net margin.
- 3.9%
- Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 386K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $38,852/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $46M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Use Telephone Call Centers's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
Telephone Call Centers is reported here with financial measures from IRS Statistics of Income and workforce measures from Census County Business Patterns. The page keeps those source systems distinct, shows unavailable fields rather than estimating them, and links the underlying industry context so readers can compare the same NAICS activity before interpreting a margin or payroll figure.
Source: IRS SOI (C corporation headline) and Census County Business Patterns 2023
Benchmarking Insights for Telephone Call Centers
Telephone Call Centers sits inside Administrative and Support and Waste Management, a sector that runs a 3.9% net margin overall.
4,141 establishments employ 386,187 workers (93.3/location) at $38,852/yr average annual pay. Texas leads employment, followed by Florida and Utah.
Telephone Call Centers sits in the 89th percentile for employment among 5-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$38,852/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
4,141
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment decreased by 50,455; establishment count decreased by 315. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Subscribe to this industry's release updates (RSS)Workforce scale
Financial Detail
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $15.0B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 93.3
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Telemarketing Bureaus and Other Contact Centers NAICS 561422 | N/A |
| Telephone Answering Services NAICS 561421 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| Texas | 50,558 |
| Florida | 44,775 |
| Utah | 15,591 |
| Tennessee | 15,084 |
| Georgia | 13,896 |
| Pennsylvania | 11,800 |
| Kentucky | 9,918 |
| Missouri | 8,602 |
| Michigan | 8,589 |
| North Carolina | 7,796 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
78
Total Loan Volume
$46M
Avg Loan Size
$595K
Jobs Supported
2,701
Program Breakdown
7(a) 75 (96%)
504 3 (4%)
Top SBA Lender
BMO Bank National Association
9 loans in this industry
New Business Share
10.3% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 16
2021 2
2022 13
2023 10
2024 19
2025 15
2026 3
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Telephone Call Centers?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 56142 level. Texas leads this industry nationally. The broader Administrative and Support and Waste Management sector runs a 3.9% net margin (IRS SOI 2013 C corp).
How many businesses are in Telephone Call Centers?
4,141 business establishments. Together they employ 386,187 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Telephone Call Centers?
$38,852/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 93.3 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Telephone Call Centers employment?
Texas leads with 50,558 workers. Florida (44,775) and Utah (15,591) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Telephone Call Centers receive?
Telephone Call Centers businesses received 78 SBA loans totaling $46 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $595K. These loans supported 2,701 jobs at origination. Most lending (96%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for Telephone Call Centers, both at NAICS level 5 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Telephone Call Centers ranks #62 of 551 U.S. industries at the 5-digit NAICS level by total employment.
Similar workforce scale
Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (386,187 here).
Read with this industry: Industry employment trends · Administrative and Support and Waste Management · Rankings
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.
Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023
NAICS 56142 · CBP 2023 · IRS SOI
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023
Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.