Crowded and small
Many small locations compete for the same neighborhood search. Lead with a Google Maps listing, reviews and narrow neighborhood pages, and use paid ads where speed matters.
Fifteen trades, counted location by location 
5.0 Rating on Google
Kings County NY Business Landscape: Which Trades Are Crowded, Growing or Thinning
The Kings County NY business landscape is the set of Census counts for fifteen trades that depend on neighborhood customers: how many employer locations each has, how big they are and how they changed since 2017. GetPhound is an online marketing company serving Brooklyn businesses, and we read these counts as a guide to how competitive each trade is in Brooklyn search.
5.0 Rating on GoogleThe commuter lens
A Borough That Sleeps Here and Works Elsewhere Still Supports 61,287 Employer Locations
A public estimate in the place brief puts about 44 percent of employed Brooklyn residents at jobs in the borough and more than half at jobs elsewhere. Even so, County Business Patterns counts 61,287 employer establishments in Kings County, with 694,266 employees. Many of the businesses in the fifteen trades below serve the same people in the evening and on weekends that they commute away from on weekdays, so the first marketing question is when customers are near, not just where.
The counts also help a Brooklyn owner judge the market. A trade at 1.8 times the typical county is not necessarily hard to win, but its customers have many choices, so a business there needs a sharper page and a stronger Maps listing. A thin trade can be an opening, or a sign the trade is run by sole operators the Census does not count. Reading the numbers well is the first step in any Kings County business landscape review for Brooklyn marketing.
- 61,287Employer establishments, all industries
- 694,266Employees at those establishments
- 2,561,225Residents, 2023 estimate
- -6.4 percentChange from the 2020 count
- 1,079,551Housing units in the Census survey
The trade table
Fifteen Trades, Most Crowded First
The table ranks the trades by how many employer locations they have per 10,000 residents compared with the typical county. The typical county here is the median among counties with at least 20,000 residents, so it is a useful ruler for Brooklyn, though Brooklyn is far denser than that county.
| Trade | Locations | Per 10,000 residents | Versus typical county | Under 10 staff | With 20+ staff | Change since 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beauty salons | 877 | 3.4 | 1.8 times | 95 of 100 | 4 | +4.4 percent |
| Residential remodelers | 1,364 | 5.3 | 1.7 times | 94 of 100 | 27 | +20.5 percent |
| Physicians offices | 1,463 | 5.7 | 1.4 times | 77 of 100 | 114 | -15.6 percent |
| Full-service restaurants | 2,214 | 8.6 | 1.3 times | 67 of 100 | 344 | -4.9 percent |
| Dentists | 810 | 3.2 | 1.1 times | 84 of 100 | 28 | -7 percent |
| Real estate agents and brokers | 778 | 3 | 1.1 times | 96 of 100 | 3 | +7.2 percent |
| Electrical contractors | 581 | 2.3 | 1 times | 81 of 100 | 55 | +11.7 percent |
| Law offices | 703 | 2.7 | 0.9 times | 92 of 100 | 14 | -3 percent |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 765 | 3 | 0.9 times | 78 of 100 | 81 | -2.2 percent |
| Accounting and CPA firms | 249 | 1 | 0.7 times | 93 of 100 | 5 | +10.7 percent |
| General automotive repair | 428 | 1.7 | 0.6 times | 93 of 100 | 4 | -9.5 percent |
| Janitorial services | 270 | 1.1 | 0.6 times | 78 of 100 | 34 | +13 percent |
| Insurance agencies and brokerages | 445 | 1.7 | 0.5 times | 89 of 100 | 9 | +5.7 percent |
| Roofing contractors | 61 | 0.2 | 0.3 times | 92 of 100 | 0 | +8.9 percent |
| Landscaping services | 144 | 0.6 | 0.2 times | 94 of 100 | 0 | -0.7 percent |
Census County Business Patterns, 2022 against 2017, employer locations with paid staff only. Typical county is the median county of 20,000 or more residents.
What stands out
Beauty, Remodeling and Medicine Are Crowded; Roofing and Landscaping Are Thin
Beauty salons lead at 1.8 times the typical county, followed by residential remodelers at 1.7 times, physician offices at 1.4 times and full-service restaurants at 1.3 times. Dentists (1.1 times) and real estate agents and brokers (1.1 times) are just above the typical county. Electrical contractors, law offices and plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors sit near or just under it.
At the other end, landscaping services (0.2 times) and roofing contractors (0.3 times) are far below, with 144 and 61 locations. Those counts include only employer locations, so crews run by owners without staff are not in them, and the numbers should not be read as an absence of demand. Insurance agencies (0.5 times), janitorial services (0.6 times) and general automotive repair (0.6 times) also sit below the typical county.
Small is the rule. In beauty salons, remodeling, landscaping and law, 92 or more of every 100 locations have fewer than 10 staff, so a competitor is usually a neighbor, not a chain. The exceptions are restaurants, with 344 locations of 20 or more staff, and physician offices, with 114.
Change since 2017
Who Gained and Who Lost Locations Between 2017 and 2022
The change is the difference in employer locations between County Business Patterns 2017 and 2022, so it shows what the Census counted, not why. Read it with the pandemic years in mind.
| Direction | Trades | What it means for a marketer |
|---|---|---|
| Grew the most | Residential remodelers (up 20.5 percent), janitorial services (up 13 percent), electrical contractors (up 11.7 percent), accounting firms (up 10.7 percent) | More competitors each year, so search pages and reviews matter earlier in a plan. |
| Grew at a moderate pace | Roofing (up 8.9 percent), real estate (up 7.2 percent), insurance (up 5.7 percent), beauty salons (up 4.4 percent) | Steady markets where a good listing and local pages hold value. |
| Stayed roughly flat or slipped slightly | Landscaping (down 0.7 percent), plumbing and HVAC (down 2.2 percent), law offices (down 3 percent) | Stable counts: a business that wins calls holds them against a market that is not adding rivals. |
| Fell the most | Physician offices (down 15.6 percent), auto repair (down 9.5 percent), dentists (down 7 percent), restaurants (down 4.9 percent) | Fewer locations does not mean less demand; patients and diners are still here, and the survivors compete for them. |
New homes
Permits for New Homes, Year by Year From 2021 to 2025
Permits are a leading signal for trades that work in new buildings and for those that serve new residents, since people moving into new housing do not yet know which businesses to call.
| Year | New residential units authorized |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 7,013 |
| 2022 | 13,480 |
| 2023 | 15,076 |
| 2024 | 10,063 |
| 2025 | 6,844 |
Census Building Permits Survey, new privately owned housing units authorized by permit.
Permits and the trades
The Permit Curve Peaked in 2023 and Has Fallen Since
New units authorized in Kings County rose from 7,013 in 2021 to 13,480 in 2022 and 15,076 in 2023, then fell to 10,063 in 2024 and 6,844 in 2025. A contractor whose pipeline depends on new buildings should expect the construction years of 2023 to be followed by fewer move-ins, while firms that serve existing buildings are less exposed. Remodelers, electrical contractors and plumbing and HVAC firms that serve the housing stock the borough already has can aim at the 1,079,551 units in the survey.
Reading across the tables
Counts Describe Competitors; Customers Are Counted Elsewhere
Every number above counts employers, not buyers. The people who buy from these trades are the 2,679,620 residents in the Census survey, plus visitors, and anyone who works in Brooklyn but lives elsewhere. The 2023 population estimate is 2,561,225, which is 6.4 percent below the 2020 count, so the customer base the trades share has shifted too. That is why a trade count should be read next to who lives near you, which a neighborhood page and a tracked Google listing can show far better than a borough total.
It is also why we avoid recommending a single plan from the county numbers alone. Two beauty salons in the same borough can face very different competition, one on a busy avenue near a train stop and another on a side street, so Brooklyn business landscape work always ends in a neighborhood, not a table.
Marketing reading
Four Ways to Use the Counts in a Plan
Large and few
Larger locations have staff to answer the phone and a bigger ad budget. Win with specific service pages, language pages and booking flows rather than a generic listing. The 344 restaurant locations of 20 or more staff set a high bar.
Thin and uncounted
The employer count is small, but sole operators are not in the table. Check actual search results before judging demand, and expect that a few strong pages can stand out.
Shrinking counts
Fewer locations are left to compete for the same customers. A business that is open, well reviewed and easy to book can pick up demand that closed locations left behind.
Starting points
Five Steps After Reading the Counts
Find your trade in the table
Note whether it is crowded, thin, growing or shrinking, and how many locations have 20 or more staff.
Compare your trade with your cluster
The county number is an average. A trade that is thin in the borough can be crowded in one neighborhood.
Check what customers see
Search your service plus the neighborhood name and the nearest train stop, and look at who appears.
Choose the lead channel
Crowded trades often start with Maps and ads; thin trades can start with a few strong organic pages. See the SEO and PPC pages for how we sequence them.
Set a measure
Pick calls, forms or booked jobs from the cluster you are building, and compare after a quarter.
Reading the numbers
Brooklyn Owners on Reading the Trade Counts
How much does it cost to act on these numbers?
The counts are public Census data, and reading them is part of planning. The work is priced through the plans: RankGuarantee™ landing pages at $495 a month for 25 pages, Organic Growth at $1,495 (Silver), $2,495 (Gold, with a managed website) and $3,495 (Platinum), and paid ads management from $895 a month, with ad spend separate. No setup fee and no contract.
Which survey years do these counts come from?
County Business Patterns for 2022, compared with 2017, plus Building Permits Survey data for 2021 to 2025 and ACS five-year estimates for 2018 to 2022. They are survey snapshots, not live counts, and a business that opened last month is not in them.
My trade is not among the fifteen. Can you still plan for it?
Yes. The fifteen are the trades the Census tracks consistently, and they stand in for neighborhood trades generally. We read other trades through search results, map listings and your own customer data, and we say plainly what we cannot measure.
Are owner-operators without staff included in the trade counts?
No. County Business Patterns counts locations with paid employees. A plumber, roofer or landscaper who works alone is not in the table, which is why thin counts in those trades need a second look at actual search results.
Why compare Brooklyn with a typical county when it is so dense?
It gives a consistent ruler. The typical county has far fewer residents per square mile, so Brooklyn naturally has more locations, but the per-resident comparison corrects for that. A trade at 1.7 times the typical county is competitive even after you account for the population.
If my trade is shrinking, is Brooklyn a bad market for it?
Not necessarily. A shrinking count means some locations closed or merged between 2017 and 2022, but customers remain. A business that is visible and easy to book can serve that demand. We would test it with a small plan and check actual calls.
How should a contractor use the permit numbers?
As a signal about where work is coming from. New permits suggest new households and new buildings, while falling permits suggest a shift toward existing buildings. Neither predicts your own busy weeks, which depend more on weather and your neighborhoods.
Explore more
Turn the Counts Into a Plan
Start Here
- Search Engine OptimizationA name map for Brooklyn searches, a page for each place and service, and a clear way to choose an SEO company.
- Digital MarketingA 90-day sequence for Brooklyn businesses: get the facts straight, fix the phone experience, publish by neighborhood, then add paid search.
- Online MarketingAn audit of every place a Brooklyn customer can find you, from the website and the map listing to reviews, social and tracking, by type of business.
- HomeSearch, ads and websites for a borough of eighteen community districts, planned around how customers travel and how they name where they are.
Get Found in Search
Paid Advertising
- Google Ads ManagementSearch ads for Brooklyn businesses, grouped by neighborhood cluster, scheduled around phone hours and paced through snow, storms and event weeks.
- PPC ManagementPay-per-click across Google, Bing and Meta for Brooklyn businesses, sized to how crowded your trade is and tested in small, measured steps.
- Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram)Facebook and Instagram advertising for Brooklyn businesses, built on neighborhood, language, age and event-week audiences, with honest limits stated.
Website and Content
- Lead GenerationCalls, forms and quote requests earned from search, Google Maps and ads, built for customers who search on the move and answered quickly.
- Website DesignWebsites built for small screens and for neighborhood searches: tap to call, the nearest train stop, honest hours and a page for each cluster you serve.
- Content MarketingPages and articles written in the names Brooklyn customers use, on the weeks they need the answer, to feed search, Maps and assistants.
Around the County
- Marketing by AreaFourteen zones from Downtown to Canarsie, grouped by the trains and roads that join them, with an order for covering them.
- Local Business Landscape (you are here)Fifteen trades counted by employer location, size and change since 2017, with new-home permits, read for what each means for marketing.
Get in Touch
Tell Us Which Trade You Are In
Name your trade and the neighborhoods you serve, and we will read these counts against your plan and say whether search, Maps or ads should lead. Phone 610-825-4363 or write to hello@getphound.com.