Security by the Numbers

• $34 billion a year is spent on private security services in America. This figure is expected to more than double by 2011.
• There are approximately 1.1 million private security officers in the United States. This is nearly double the number of American police officers.
• Private security is one of the fastest growing occupations in the U.S. The industry is expected to add more than 120,000 jobs by 2016.
• A recent report on the private security services industry in the U.S. estimates that employee turnover can be as high as 300 percent annually within the guarding industry.

Standards and Enforcement

• Despite the size of the private security industry in the U.S., there are no federal laws or regulations governing the industry.
• Some states have basic requirements for private security officers, but many have weak rules or no standards at all.
• SEIU has successfully led the push for higher security standards in several states, including Washington, DC, New York, Illinois and California.
• In New York City, SEIU operates a training program for security officers as part of its training and education fund.
• In surveys conducted in California, Texas, and Florida in 2002, 70 percent of officers say their buildings never conduct bomb or natural disaster drills - and four in ten officers said their buildings hadn't implemented new procedures to strengthen security since 9/11/01.

Security Companies

• According to the government, there are 5,000 private security firms operating in the U.S. Nonetheless, the industry is dominated by a few large firms that include Securitas, Allied Barton, Group 4 Securicor (Wackenhut), US Security Associates, and Guardsmark.
• The largest private security firm in the U.S. is Securitas, based in Sweden. Since 1998, Securitas has acquired Pinkerton, Burns and several other U.S. security firms and employs more than 108,000 workers in the U.S. -- more than two times as many as any other security company.
• In 2002, Securitas reported nearly $7.5 billion in sales globally, including more than $3.2 billion from their U.S. security services operations.
• The second largest private security firm in the U.S. is Group 4 Securicor, a London-based company. In 2002, Group 4 purchased the U.S.-based Wackenhut Corporation and now employs approximately 40,000 security workers in the U.S.
• When Group 4 purchased Wackenhut, it reported more than $2 billion in annual revenues.

Security Unions

• In Europe, security officers are able to work with management and public officials to set higher standards for training, screening, oversight, and licensing because they are in unions. For example, almost all of the Securitas and Group 4 Securicor employees in their Scandinavian home countries are union members.
• In Finland, Securitas worked with Finnish trade unions to set up the Finnish Guard Training Center. In Austria, both Securitas and Group 4 developed a basic training course and negotiated with their unions to have it inserted in the collective bargaining agreement.
• Only 8 percent of private security officers in the U.S. are members of a union.
• With more than 30,000 private security and safety officers, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is the largest security officers' union in the U.S. SEIU represents private security officers in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington, DC.