Staffing industry worldwide - statistics & facts

The staffing industry includes organizations whose purpose is to locate and/or supply workers for other organizations. The predicted revenue for the global staffing industry in 2022 was estimated at over 650 billion U.S dollars, following two years of continuous growth. The industry took a big hit during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, however revenue has bounced back to surpass pre-pandemic figures. The largest revenue segment of this industry is agency work, comprising approximately 75 percent of the market in 2020. Recruitment services constitute the remainder.

The role of staffing agencies

Staffing agencies arrange workers for limited term assignments at other organizations. The length of these assignments can vary greatly, with some being as short as a few hours while others lasting a year or more. One key difference between agency staffing and standard contract employment is that agency workers are paid by the agency, not the organization they are performing the work for. Agency workers are common across a variety of sectors, with the industrial sector and office support being generally the two largest. For example, these two sectors constitute over half the market in the United States when broken down by temporary and contract employees. The United States has led the way globally in terms of staffing industry revenue with significant growth amongst staffing firms recorded over the last several years.

Types of agency work

Agency work can be divided into two main types – contract work and temporary work. Temporary (or ‘temp’) agencies arrange workers at short notice for specific projects. Generally the projects will only last between one day and one week, with wages usually calculated hourly. Given the hourly wages and short-term nature of the assignments, rarely do temp workers receive benefits such as medical leave or paid holidays. While temp work does not provide a great deal of job security or choice to workers, it does provide both immediacy and flexibility, with many positions needing to be filled right away. Contract work differs from temporary work in that it has a longer duration, usually measured in months (but rarely more than a year). During this period workers are expected to work full days, and their wages are determined according to the contract length. Benefits are also more common (but not guaranteed) for contract workers. The skill level of most agency workers worldwide was defined as medium by the World Employment Confederation.

Industry leaders

Globally, the industry is dominated by three main multinational companies: Swiss firm Adecco, Dutch firm Randstad, and U.S. corporation ManpowerGroup. Each of these companies provides agency staffing, recruitment services, and a range of additional consulting and outsourcing options. The Adecco Group's workforce solutions division generated a revenue of 16.9 billion euros in 2021, whereas the staffing service line of Randstad created over 12 billion euros in the same year. To give some scale of the global reach of these industry leaders, ManpowerGroup had approximately 2,200 offices worldwide in 2021.
This text provides general information. Statista assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.
Published by Statista Research Department, Jun 2, 2023

Key insights

Global staffing revenue
442bn USD
Staffing revenue in the U.S.
218bn USD
Leading country by revenue in the staffing industry
United States
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