A janitor, custodian, porter, cleaner or caretaker is a person who cleans and maintains buildings such as hospitals, schools, and residential accommodation. Janitors' primary responsibility is as a cleaner. Janitors typically earn an average wage of $15 per hour in the United States. That translates to an annual salary of around $35,000 for states that pay Janitors the most amount, such as New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. In some cases, they will also carry out maintenance and security duties. A similar position, but usually with more managerial duties and not including cleaning, is occupied by building superintendents in the United States and School Site Managers in schools in the United Kingdom. Cleaning is one of the most commonly outsourced services.
Occupational tasks
Although most of the work performed by janitors and building cleaners is indoors, sometimes it can be outdoors. Office buildings are usually cleaned when they are vacant, so most of the office janitorial staff work during the evening. The work can be physically demanding and sometimes dirty and unpleasant. General janitor duties often include the following tasks:
Small maintenance work, such as: changing lightbulbs, filters and ceiling tiles, fixing small leaks, regular inspection and testing of building equipment, etc.
Outdoor work, such as: cleaning walkways, mowing lawns, tending to landscaping, leaf clean up, snow removal, etc. In some places, a separate crew or company may do outdoor work.
Porterage
Unclogging blocked drains and toilets
Removing vomit, urine, and feces from public areas
Raising and lowering flags
Pay scale
In 2010, the median pay of a janitor working in the US was $10.68 per hour. The yearly salary could grow by 11% according to the statistics of 2010.
Office cleaning
Office cleaning staff perform many of the same duties as janitors. However the tasks are divided among different members. Additional tasks include:
watering plants
cleaning sinks, refrigerators, microwaves and toasters in office kitchens; clearing recycling and garbage bins
dusting furniture and computer equipment and tables
Outsourcing
Cleaning is one of the most commonly outsourced services. Some of the reasons for this include:
Basic cleaning tasks are standardised, with little variation among different enterprises.
The nature of the job and required standard of performance can be clearly defined and specified in a contract, unlike more technical or professional jobs for which such specification is harder to develop.
Some organizations prefer to outsource work unrelated to their core business in order to save additional salaries and benefits required to manage the work.
Some organizations may feel uncomfortable dealing with labour relations related to low wage employees; by outsourcing, these labor relations issues are transferred to a contractor whose staff are comfortable and experienced in dealing with these issues, and their approach can benefit from economies of scale.
If a janitor is unavailable due to sickness or leave, a contractor which employs many janitors can easily assign a substitute. A small organisation which employs one or a few janitors directly will have much more trouble with this.
Demography
Between 17% to 23% of the total undocumented immigrant population living in the United States work in the cleaning industry. In addition to this population offering an abundant source of inexpensive labor, janitorial work is mostly undertaken at night, making it an appealing option for janitorial companies to employ undocumented workers seeking clandestine employment. In the Netherlands, the number of cleaning companies grew from 5,000 in 2003 to 8,000 in 2008.
