U.S. staffing companies employed an average of 3.3 million temporary and contract workers per week in 2015, up 2.6 percent from 2014, according to data released today by the American Staffing Association.
During all of 2015, staffing companies hired a total of 15.9 million temporary and contract employees—the highest number since 2000. The average length of employment with a staffing company was 10.7 weeks in 2015, slightly shorter than the tenure of 11.3 weeks in 2014.
“The staffing, recruiting, and workforce solutions industry is extremely proud of the important role it plays in creating jobs and enabling employment, matching millions of Americans and their skills with millions of jobs every day,” said Richard Wahlquist, ASA president and CEO. “Over the course of the past year, the industry provided employment to close to 16 million people, many of whom bridged to permanent positions.”
In the fourth quarter of 2015, average weekly staffing employment totaled 3.4 million workers—up 2.8 percent from the third quarter and 0.4 percent more than in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Annual temporary and contract staffing sales in 2015 totaled $120.1 billion, up 2.8 percent over 2014. Fourth quarter sales grew to $31.4 billion—2.3 percent more than in the third quarter of 2015 and 2.8 percent more than in fourth quarter of 2014.
See the ASA website for more details about the quarterly ASA Staffing Employment and Sales Survey, sponsored by ASA research partner CareerBuilder.
