The Most Pest-Control-Intensive Metros in America

Employment counts tell you where the customers are. Concentration tells you where the industry matters. The federal payroll data supports both, and the two lists have almost nobody in common.

The most pest-control-intensive metros

Concentration is the location quotient: the metro’s share of employment in pest control divided by the national share. A value of 1 means the metro looks like the country. 2024 annual averages.

A concentration of 5.94 means Punta Gorda has almost six times the pest control employment its overall job base would predict. It gets there on 327 employees across 26 establishments, which is small in absolute terms and enormous relative to the metro. Warm climate, high termite pressure, a housing stock skewed to retirees and single-family homes, and a service economy with few large alternative employers all push in the same direction.

Florida takes eight of the top ten. The exceptions are Myrtle Beach and Tucson, which share the retiree-heavy, warm-climate profile without the humidity in Tucson’s case, where scorpions and desert pests substitute for termites.

Where the workforce actually is

Los Angeles has the largest pest control workforce in the country and a below-average concentration, because everything else in Los Angeles is larger still. Boston is the same story more sharply: 1,701 employees, a concentration of 0.64, and the highest average pay on the list at $71,198.

Seattle is the least concentrated metro we can measure, at 0.51, followed by Boston at 0.64 and San Francisco at 0.66. Cool, damp, high-wage metros with dense housing are where this industry is smallest relative to the economy around it.

The pay inversion

Read the two tables side by side and the pattern is hard to miss. The most concentrated metros pay $46,000 to $51,000. The least concentrated pay $61,000 to $71,000. Port St. Lucie has 2.73 times the expected pest control employment and the lowest average pay in the set.

Two forces produce this and they work in the same direction. Florida and Arizona metros have lower overall wage levels, so every industry pays less there. And a metro with a high concentration has a deep pool of people already doing this work, which is a buyer’s market for labour. Thin markets have to pay to pull people in from other trades.

For an operator this reframes the expansion question. High-concentration metros offer demand density, short drive times and an experienced labour pool, alongside more competitors than anywhere else and customers who have been quoted by all of them. Low-concentration metros offer weak competition and a wage bill benchmarked against a high-paying local economy, which is the constraint we quantified in our analysis of how the industry’s pay compares locally.

What concentration does and does not tell you

A high location quotient is not a market gap. It is the opposite: it says a lot of capacity is already there. Anyone reading these tables as a site-selection list should pair them with competitive density, which we cover in our market density index and our county-level view of where the companies are.

The number also says nothing about revenue or margin. Establishment counts hint at structure, though: Punta Gorda supports 26 establishments for 327 employees, about 13 each, while Miami has 692 establishments for 3,969 employees, under six each. Miami’s market is far more fragmented, which usually means more one-truck operators and more price competition.

How we did this

We used the Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for 2024, taking annual average employment, establishment counts and average annual pay for NAICS 561710 by metropolitan statistical area. The location quotient is published in the same files and compares the metro’s employment share in the industry with the national share.

We excluded metros with fewer than 300 pest control employees, because location quotients are unstable at small counts, which leaves 32 metros. This is the main limit on the analysis: federal disclosure rules suppress industry detail wherever too few employers would be identifiable, so many smaller metros with genuinely high concentration cannot be measured at all. The published set skews toward larger markets and the Sunbelt, and the true top of the concentration list may include metros that never appear in the data.

Frequently asked questions

Which US metro has the most pest control jobs?

Los Angeles, with 4,806 people employed in the industry in 2024, followed by Miami at 3,969 and Phoenix at 3,735. Los Angeles sits below the national average concentration at 0.79, because its overall job base is so large.

Where is pest control most concentrated?

Punta Gorda, Florida, at 5.94 times the national average concentration, then Cape Coral-Fort Myers at 3.40 and Ocala at 2.92. Eight of the ten most concentrated metros are in Florida; the other two are Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Tucson, Arizona.

Do pest control technicians earn more in Florida?

No. The Florida metros with the highest industry concentration report average pay of roughly $46,600 to $57,300, while Boston reports $71,198 and San Diego $61,388 on far lower concentration. Lower local wage levels and a deep existing labour pool both push pay down where the industry is dense.

Is a high concentration of pest control companies a good sign for starting a business?

It shows demand, and it also shows the competition that demand has already attracted. Miami supports 692 establishments for 3,969 employees, under six each, which indicates a fragmented market with many small operators competing on price. Concentration is better read as a measure of existing capacity than as an opportunity signal.

Sources

• US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, NAICS 561710 by metropolitan statistical area, 2024 annual averages. bls.gov
• Analysis by The Pest Control Brief, September 2026.