ASID Reports Good News for Industry 2015/2016 Recovery

With the release of the

Interior Design 2015/16 Outlook and State of the Industry Report

by the

American Society of Interior Designers (ASID)

, the numbers point to a full post-recession recovery of the interior design industry with billings and inquiries up with positive expectations into 2016. Under the leadership of David Krantz, VP of research and knowledge management, ASID surveyed more than 200 practicing interior designers to analyze data from public and private sources and from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. The society also convened the first ever ASID Think Tank Challenge, confirming the validity of six developing macro-trends in the interior design industry.

The survey suggests good news for interior designers, as the recovery of the industry translates into a hot job market with 25 percent of surveyed respondents indicating their intent to hire new employees and many firms reporting a struggle to find and retain talent. With the total number of employed interior designers (60,824) having increased by 10,000 since 2012, the total number of design firms (13,257), the dollar value of sales ($8.6 billion), and the dollar value of products specified ($68.5 Billion) are also shown at record level highs, signifying a healthy recovery and a return to a pre-recession demand.

In addition to projecting growth in the interior design sector, ASID also looked into the 2015/16 macro-trends within the industry by convening a think tank, comprised of six leaders from various disciplines and from innovative firms, who confirmed the identified macro-trends in the areas of Health & Well-being, Technology, Sustainability, Urbanization, Globalization and Resiliency. The identification of the main macro-trends aimed to analyze what the trends mean for the interior design businesses and projects and to expand boundaries of interior design as a profession, suggesting that businesses that failed to adapt to the trends would likely be facing an increased risk of falling behind the competition.