Higher rates of personal disposable income, greater outsourcing by the healthcare industry and continued expansion of garment rental into the service sector are helping to extend a decade-long trend of stronger growth in the textile services industry as compared with the U.S. economy. However, economic factors, including fuel costs and higher labor rates, continue to challenge profitability. The outlook for 2008 is similar: good opportunities for sustained sales expansion, especially from the burgeoning megatrend of environmentalism, will persist while already apparent challenges to profitability will continue to intensify. As has become readily evident in recent years, textile service companies must ...