The biggest, most ambitious State of Staffing report is now live from Staffing Hub!

The staffing industry has been on a wild ride.

After record growth in 2021, employers made cost-cutting hiring freezes in 2023, leading to a slowdown in revenue for staffing agencies. More than 40% of respondents in our latest survey reported that their business didn’t grow at all last year. 

However, despite industry challenges, 35% of respondents managed to grow by 11% or more in 2023. Compared to agencies whose revenue contracted, these fast-growth agencies were more likely to lean on software and technology to automate their recruiting processes and better navigate uncertainties. 

Staffing Hub also found that most respondents are optimistic about 2024, with nearly all expecting some amount of growth in the year ahead. 

One of our favorite stats was that “Roughly half (48%) of respondents currently use AI for business applications, and 48% of those who don’t yet use AI plan to adopt it this year.” 

A few other highlights from the latest report include: 

• Client acquisition and sales (25%), economic challenges (18%), and talent acquisition (17%) are the top three challenges agencies are facing. 
• The percentage of respondents who agreed that recruiting automation is going to transform the staffing industry jumped to 73%, up 11 percentage points from last year.
• For another year, respondents rated referrals and LinkedIn as their best sources for finding new candidates.
• “Relationship-oriented” and “goal-oriented” continue to be the top two attributes of an ideal recruiter — however, fast-growth businesses placed more priority on relationship orientation, while agencies that contracted rated goal orientation as more important.

To dive into more industry insights to help guide your company through the rest of the year, see the full report.