Staffing and recruiting sales growing faster than the economy

The staffing and recruiting industry is in the midst of many changes.

The introduction of the Affordable Care Act and relatively steady, but slow, economic growth over the past few years is creating an interesting landscape on which recruiters are having to traverse. As a result, professionals are having to count on more operationally efficient tools like recruiting software and staffing software to appropriately deal with increases in contingent hiring and employment ups and downs.

The negative hiring effects of the recession are decreasing

Economic indicators are showing that the negative effects of the recession are slowly receding. The unemployment rate has declined about 2.5 percentage points since its peak during 2009 and other economic cycles are showing signs of a jobs recovery, according to Monster. While there is still political gridlock and economic conditions keeping hiring at low rate of growth, productivity games have been made.

“The huge productivity gains we were seeing a year or two ago have pretty much evaporated,” said Bernard Weinstein, an economist at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business in Dallas, according to the source. “If we can’t squeeze much more productivity out of current workers, then we have to hire more workers.”

Changes in the marketplace will have a positive impact on the economy in the future. Current conditions are indicating to economists that hiring will pick up soon and recent interviews of large employers in the U.S. confer. According to a Yoh survey, four out of five large organizations plan to hire as many or more new workers in 2013 as they did in 2012. Out of those who reported that they would be hiring in 2013, 50 percent expect to increase their workforce between 3 and 5 percent. Another 22 percent of companies are planning to increase the number of workers they have on the payroll between 6 and 9 percent.

“The economy was depressed for a long time, so the potential is there for hiring,” said Farrokh Hormozi, an economist and chair of the Public Administration Department at Pace University in New York City.

Changing sales picture in the staffing industry

The recession seemed to have had one positive outcome – sales in the staffing industry picked up. According to the American Staffing Association, the industry’s sales losses in 2009 were the largest ever – despite increases in temporary and contract employment in some sectors. However, this quickly turned around in 2010, when companies begun implementing more strategic hiring plans to deal with the effects of the recession, instead of simply reacting and using mass layoffs to control the budget.

In 2010, sales increased 21.3 percent to $87.4 billion and by 2011 sales rose another 12.4 percent – bringing industry sales to $98.3 billion. Just a year later, staffing and recruiting professionals were able to celebrate a good year once again when sales in 2012 increased by 6.6 percent in a year-over-year comparison to $104.8 billion.

According to Staffing Industry Analysts, growth did slow down in some sectors, yet search and placement peaked and continued to grow. U.S. staffing industry sales reached $117 billion in 2012 – a 6.5 percent increase in a year-over-year comparison. As the economy has improved , the staffing and recruiting industry has met each positive movement two-fold. Temporary and contract positions are being offered at increased rates, which is leading many staffing professionals scrambling to implement new procedures to deal with the workflow. This trend is expected to continue in the next few years, which is why it’s crucial for professionals to invest in the staffing software made to handle the influx.

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