Photography Studios NAICS 541921

Jul 22, 2025 - Prices, Employment Down

• According to the Consumer Price Index, pricing for photographers and photo processing services declined 3.1% in June 2025 year over year and fell 2.6% compared to the previous month. Employment by photographic services fell 4% in April 2025 compared to a year ago, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The decline continues an overall employment decline over the past decade. Employment by photographic services dropped 15.4% in the past 10 years, compared to 13.6% growth in overall private employment. Wages at other professional, scientific, and technical services, which include photography studios, grew 11% in April 2025 year over year to $36.24 per hour. Consumers may delay photography purchases during periods of lower consumer spending. Consumer spending levels fell 0.1% in May 2025 from the previous month, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
• The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index increased slightly in July 2025, rising to 61.8 in preliminary July data from 60.7 in June, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The consumer sentiment index hit a recent peak in December of 74, buoyed following the presidential election, but dropped to 52.2 in April 2025 as consumers expressed uncertainty about tariff effects and rising inflation. In July, respondents’ inflation expectations for the coming year were an anticipated price increase of 4.4%, which was tracking higher than in January, when respondents expected prices to grow by 3.9%. However, July’s inflation expectation results were lower than June’s, when respondents expected a 5% price increase for the coming year. The index serves as a predictor of consumer spending as it indicates consumers’ perception of their financial prospects and the broader economy.

• Sales for the US photography studios industry are projected to rise at a 2.96% CAGR from 2025 to 2029, slower than the overall economy's projected growth, according to a forecast from Inforum and the Interindustry Economic Research Fund, Inc. The professional and technical services sectors are driven by household income and consumer spending, construction spending, and expenditure on IT services. New technologies could support labor productivity gains for the industry. An expected improvement in consumer sentiment in the forecast period bodes well for the sector. A factor that may limit consumer spending is higher tariffs on consumer goods. Lower inflation supports a moderate increase of real disposable income by about 2% in 2025 and 1.9% in 2026. Real income could suffer to an extent if average prices rise due to tariff implementation.
• According to the Wedding Business Survey Q2, nearly 40% of wedding vendors, including photographers and videographers, said their business is financially worse off compared to a year ago. Asked about their bookings for the full year 2025, nearly half of the surveyed vendors said their bookings for events, services, and product orders were trending lower than normal, with 26% of vendors reporting bookings that were “much less than normal,” reflecting a decline of 25% or more. About 21.2% of vendors said bookings were about the same as normal, and 23.6% were slightly or moderately more than normal. Vendors were asked to estimate how much they’d seen couples cut their wedding guest counts and their overall wedding budgets. About half saw a decline in wedding guest counts, with 28.5% seeing declines of 10% to 25%, while half saw a decline in budgets, with 27.3% having a 10% to 25% decrease. Top business challenges were getting leads (23.6%), converting leads into sales (23%), couples delaying commitments (15.2%), rising costs of operations (14.5%), and pricing pressure from competition (7.9%). Other challenges written in by respondents included “ghosting” by potential customers, rising costs, iPhones wreaking havoc on the industry, and the “current global economic uncertainty.”