CareerPlug has spent more than a decade building hiring and retention software for franchise networks. Today we partner with more than 400 franchise brands — ranging from massage and facial spas to home health care and auto repair. The breadth of our client base gives us a unique perspective on the challenges (and solutions) in franchise hiring.
Franchising standardizes almost everything. But people operations — how locations hire, who they hire, the steps they take to retain and develop their teams — typically looks different at every location. Each franchisee figures it out on their own, and the entire system pays the price of inconsistent hiring outcomes.
Unfortunately, finding data-backed guidance about what works best for hiring within a specific industry has always been a challenge.Most franchisors have had to piece together anecdotal feedback from franchisees to understand what’s working in your market, what’s not. And when you do go looking for data-backed insights, you can only find general labor market benchmarks and generic hiring trends; there is nothing franchise-specific readily available. The service franchise segment in particular has distinct hiring dynamics, and it deserves data and analysis that reflects those nuances.
So, we pulled it ourselves. We gathered hiring data from approximately 46,000 franchise locations, representing 7.5 million applicants and nearly 90,000 total hires. We then narrowed in on seven service franchise industries that make up the largest portion of that activity: 6.2 million applicants, 268,000 interviews, and 70,500 hires in 2025.
Read the new report
This is the first cross-industry hiring report built for the service franchise segment specifically, so that you can measure your own network’s hiring performance against the broader service franchise segment. “2026 Service franchise hiring: Benchmarks, channel shifts, and recommendations” is available now, free to download.
Hiring got harder in 2026, and the data shows why
Over the past several months, CareerPlug clients kept telling us the same thing: hiring feels harder than it did a year ago, with applicants down and once-reliable channels sputtering. Instead of guessing, we pulled January–May 2026 and compared it to the same months in 2025. The data backs up the feedback. Applications via organic postings on major job boards dropped significantly, and hiring in most service franchise industries is down 8–22% year over year. This isn’t unique to CareerPlug clients; it’s a broad change at the largest job board affecting everyone who uses it. The takeaway for anyone posting jobs in 2026 is that “free” distribution on job boards no longer carries hiring the way it did even a year ago and every applicant matters even more than before.
Top franchise brands hire dramatically faster than the rest of their industry
Home healthcare’s largest brands fill caregiver roles in 34 days vs 49 for everyone else. Personal care: 53 vs 78. Automotive: 67 vs 96. The behavioral patterns and job needs are different in every industry, which is why generic hiring advice doesn’t close the gap. The report’s industry-specific deep dives include tactical recommendations grounded in what’s actually working in each segment.
The brand is doing real recruiting work, with careers pages producing 25-35% of hires
Despite representing a smaller slice of total applicants in consumer-facing service franchises, careers page candidates become hires at nearly twice the rate of job board applicants. In personal care, branded careers pages drove 18% of applicants but 35% of hires. Fitness and education and childcare see similar patterns. These candidates aren’t scrolling job boards. Instead, they’re typing in the name of a salon, gym, or preschool they already know — or landing there from a QR code on a flyer or from a “We’re hiring” sign in a location. Brand familiarity is a recruiting asset and most networks haven’t built their careers pages to capture it.
One referral does the work of 6 job board applicants
Referrals represent 2.5% of applicants and 10.5% of hires. That’s a 5.9x conversion advantage that holds across every service industry we looked at. A referral candidate comes with a trust signal that transcends whether the brand is a household name. Franchisees who consistently get referrals are the ones who ask for them repeatedly, with a clear bonus structure and a named point of contact who actually responds when a name comes in.
How does your system compare?
Strong hiring performance in one service industry can be a big red flag in another. For example, a 4-day time to first contact is ahead of the pack in fitness, but behind the curve in personal care. Comparing yourself to a segment-wide average flattens the differences and can flag a strong operator as weak (or vice versa). It’s much more powerful to reference your industry’s specific numbers instead.
If you’re a CareerPlug client and would like to review what the data means for your network specifically, just reach out to your Partnership manager. We’d love to talk through it together.
If you’re not working with us yet, schedule a demo so we can show you the type of growth that a partnership with CareerPlug unlocks for a franchise system.