In April, SIA and Bullhorn announced the launch of SIA | Bullhorn Staffing Indicator. Bullhorn is a cloud computing company that helps staffing and recruiting organizations transform their businesses, and Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) is a global advisor on staffing and workforce solutions. According to the announcement (mostly directly quoted):
- The tool gauges current weekly trends in the volume of temporary staffing delivered by US staffing firms.
- It can be used by staffing firms to benchmark their performance and forecast industry trends and outlook.
- The Indicator is useful for business leaders, investors and market observers as a lead indicator for the US economy and labor market.
- It reflects the number of hours worked per week by US temporary workers. Bullhorn provides anonymized, aggregated data based on hours worked at a variety of staffing firms, and SIA has developed a comprehensive methodology for publishing the Indicator.
- The Indicator comprises metrics representing total US Staffing (total market), Professional Staffing (IT, healthcare, finance, engineering, etc.) and Commercial Staffing (light industrial and office/clerical).
- “The Indicator is weighted based on a significant sample of the US staffing industry, covering a wide range of occupations, industry verticals and with a geographic footprint spanning the country,” says Barry Asin, President at SIA.
- The Indicator is updated weekly, with detailed insight and analysis on values, trends and projections provided on a quarterly basis. The Indicator is indexed to business volumes in the week ending January 19, 2019, which is set at 100.
- Additional information on the data and detailed methodology can be found on Bullhorn and SIA’s websites.
According to the latest release, dated May 28 (mostly directly quoted):
- Temporary staffing hours worked last week (the week ending May 22nd) were up 29% compared to the corresponding week a year ago. Not surprisingly, the high growth rate is largely explained by the pullback in temporary staffing that occurred in May 2020 due to the severe lockdown restrictions during the initial months of the pandemic in the US.
- Temporary staffing hours worked in professional occupations (IT, healthcare, finance, engineering, etc.) were up 38% year-over-year.
- Temporary staffing hours completed in commercial occupations (industrial and office/clerical) were up 21% year-over-year.
- On a week-over-week sequential basis, professional temporary staffing hours were unchanged (0.0%) while commercial temporary staffing hours worked decreased 1.7%, when comparing last week with the week ending May 15th.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Chart Image – Staffing Industry Analysts
