Auto parts statistics show a large retail market serving a substantial, aging vehicle population. In 2022, U.S. automotive parts and accessories retailers reported $95.35 billion in sales, shipments or revenue across 40,222 establishments. The wider motor vehicle and parts dealer industry employed nearly 600,000 people in 2025, while recalls continued to affect millions of vehicles.
Contents
- Market size and business footprint
- Employment and monthly trends
- Occupations, wages and hours
- Operating conditions and productivity
- Vehicle ownership and age
- Recalls and electric vehicles
Market size and business footprint
The 2022 Economic Census provides a detailed baseline for automotive-parts retailing. The Census counted 17,199 firms in NAICS 441330, automotive parts and accessories retailing. Those firms operated 40,222 establishments and reported $95,347,894,000 in sales, shipments or revenue during 2022. Annual payroll totaled $12,671,710,000.
These figures describe automotive parts and accessories retailers specifically, rather than every business in the broader motor vehicle and parts dealer industry. They also measure the 2022 census year, so they should not be treated as a current-year sales estimate. The source is the U.S. Census Bureau’s Retail Trade: Summary Statistics for the U.S., States, and Selected Geographies: 2022.
| 2022 automotive-parts retail measure | Reported amount |
|---|---|
| Firms | 17,199 |
| Establishments | 40,222 |
| Sales, shipments or revenue | $95,347,894,000 |
| Annual payroll | $12,671,710,000 |
The distinction between firms and establishments matters when reading the market’s structure. A firm can operate more than one establishment, so the two counts describe different units. The reported payroll is an annual total for the same 2022 retail classification and geography.
Employment and monthly trends
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 594,800 employees in NAICS 4413, automotive parts, accessories and tire retailers, in April 2024. The not-seasonally-adjusted series then recorded 594,500 employees in December 2024, 593,000 in January 2025, 594,500 in February, 595,800 in March and 596,500 in April 2025.
The April-to-April figures therefore describe a change from 594,800 to 596,500 employees in the published series. Monthly observations are useful for showing the level at each measurement date, but they do not by themselves explain why employment changed. The series combines automotive parts and accessories retailers with tire dealers. These observations come from the BLS Table B-1b: Employees on nonfarm payrolls by industry sector and selected industry detail.
Within the April 2024 and March 2025 observations, automotive parts and accessories retailers classified as NAICS 44133 employed 403,700 and 406,100 people, respectively. Tire dealers classified as NAICS 44134 employed 191,100 people in April 2024 and 189,700 in March 2025. These are component series and should be kept separate from the combined NAICS 4413 total.
For readers tracking demand for replacement parts, the employment data describe the retail and tire businesses that sell and support products. They do not measure parts production, wholesale distribution or repair employment across all industries. The source labels the payroll series as not seasonally adjusted, and the dates should remain attached to each comparison.
Occupations, wages and hours
The BLS industry profile for motor vehicle and parts dealers lists several occupations connected with selling, servicing and handling vehicles and parts. In 2025, the industry included 316,910 automotive service technicians and mechanics, 195,190 parts salespersons and 309,010 retail salespersons. It also included 82,770 cleaners of vehicles and equipment and 81,470 first-line supervisors or managers of retail sales workers.
The occupation counts are not interchangeable with the NAICS 4413 retail-employment series. They describe occupations in the broader motor vehicle and parts dealers industry, and an industry can include workers in many different job categories. The figures are for 2025, as reported in the BLS Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers: NAICS 441.
Pay levels varied materially by occupation. In 2025, automotive service technicians and mechanics had a median hourly wage of $27.95 and a median annual wage of $58,140. Parts salespersons had a median hourly wage of $17.64 and a median annual wage of $36,690. Retail salespersons had a median hourly wage of $19.83.
| 2025 occupation measure | Automotive service technicians and mechanics | Parts salespersons | Retail salespersons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median hourly wage | $27.95 | $17.64 | $19.83 |
| Median annual wage | $58,140 | $36,690 | Not provided |
The annual wage shown for technicians and parts salespersons is a median annual figure, while the retail-salesperson figure supplied here is an hourly median only. It would be misleading to convert the hourly values into annual salaries without an hours assumption.
For the broader industry, June 2026 average hourly earnings were $33.71 for all employees and $28.65 for production and nonsupervisory employees; both figures were preliminary. Average weekly hours were 37.1 for all employees and 36.9 for production and nonsupervisory employees, also preliminary. These June 2026 averages are different measures from the 2025 occupation-specific medians and should not be combined as though they were the same wage series.
Operating conditions and productivity
Safety statistics provide another view of operating conditions. Motor vehicle and parts dealers recorded 72 work-related fatalities in 2023 and 57 in 2024. In 2024, the total recordable injury-and-illness case rate was 2.8 per 100 full-time workers.
The 2024 rate for cases involving days away, job restriction or transfer was 1.6 per 100 full-time workers. Within that measure, cases involving days away from work were 0.9 per 100 full-time workers, while cases involving job transfer or restriction were 0.7 per 100 full-time workers. These rates describe cases, not a count of individual workers, and the fatality totals are separate from the injury-and-illness rates.
The producer price index for motor vehicle and parts dealers was 170.067 in April 2026 and 169.426 in June 2026; both observations were preliminary. The index levels are reported as index values, not dollar prices, so they should be used as a price-series measure rather than interpreted as the cost of a particular replacement part.
Private-industry establishments in the industry numbered 124,432 in the fourth quarter of 2025 and 124,520 in the first quarter of 2026, with the latter preliminary. Labor productivity, measured as output per hour, increased 1.7% in 2025. Output increased 2.1%, and unit labor costs increased 1.5% in the same year.
These productivity measures describe the industry’s reported output and labor inputs. They do not establish that every retailer became more productive or that every part category experienced the same price or cost movement. The operating, labor and productivity figures are from the BLS Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers: NAICS 441.
Vehicle ownership and age
Vehicle ownership helps frame the potential scale and diversity of replacement-parts demand. In the 2022 National Household Travel Survey, two vehicles were available to 38% of U.S. households, one vehicle to 33%, three vehicles to 13%, and four or more vehicles to 7%. No motor vehicle was available to 8% of households.
| Vehicles available per household | Share of U.S. households in 2022 |
|---|---|
| None | 8% |
| One | 33% |
| Two | 38% |
| Three | 13% |
| Four or more | 7% |
The vehicle-age distribution points to a large population of vehicles beyond their first few years. Vehicles aged 5–9 years represented 30% of privately operated vehicles in 2022. Vehicles aged 10–14 years represented 18%, vehicles aged 15–19 years represented 14%, and vehicles aged 20–24 years represented 7%.
Together, those supplied age bands account for 69% of privately operated vehicles, but the figures should be read as reported category shares rather than as a complete age-distribution table. The data do not specify individual repair frequency or the exact parts needed by each age group. The ownership and age measures come from the Federal Highway Administration’s Vehicles | Our Nation’s Highways 2026, using 2022 survey data.
Recalls and electric vehicles
National recall activity creates another measurable source of vehicle service and parts-related work, although a recall does not automatically mean a retail replacement-parts purchase. NHTSA recorded 894 vehicle recalls affecting 34,826,118 vehicles in calendar year 2023. In 2024, it recorded 950 recalls affecting 29,346,478 vehicles.
Electric-vehicle recall counts varied considerably from year to year. NHTSA recorded 74 electric-vehicle recalls affecting 2,911,154 electric vehicles in 2020; 56 recalls affecting 566,584 electric vehicles in 2021; 39 recalls affecting 1,311,920 electric vehicles in 2022; 19 recalls affecting 156,568 electric vehicles in 2023; and 12 recalls affecting 365,183 electric vehicles in 2024.
| Recall year | EV recalls | Electric vehicles affected |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 74 | 2,911,154 |
| 2021 | 56 | 566,584 |
| 2022 | 39 | 1,311,920 |
| 2023 | 19 | 156,568 |
| 2024 | 12 | 365,183 |
The number of recalls and the number of vehicles affected do not move together: a smaller number of recalls can involve a larger vehicle population when a campaign covers many vehicles. NHTSA also reported an average completion rate of 62.9% for qualifying vehicle recalls from recall year 2021 and 61.5% for qualifying recalls from recall year 2022. Those completion rates refer to qualifying recalls and their stated recall years, not to all vehicles on the road.
The recall figures and completion rates are from NHTSA’s 2024 Annual Recall Report. They are useful for understanding the scale of safety-related campaigns, while the market, employment and vehicle-population statistics describe different parts of the auto-parts ecosystem and should not be treated as one combined measure.