Everyone is interested in understanding the state of the job market, including me. With unemployment in the double digits, we all want to know when employment will turn around. So I thought I’d check the numbers and see what I could find. Here is some data on the temporary employment market:
• U.S. temporary help payrolls rose by 33,700 jobs in October, according to seasonally adjusted preliminary numbers released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• The temporary employment category actually started adding jobs in August when employment increased by 3,200, according to revised numbers from the BLS. September also posted an increase in temporary employment of 7,200.
• In total, temporary employment added 44,100 jobs since July. However, temporary employment had fallen by an average of 44,000 jobs per month between January 2008 and July 2009.
• The temporary help penetration rate rose to 1.4% in October from 1.3% in September.
• The employment services industry as a whole added 36,000 jobs in October after adding 10,100 in September and 6,100 in August.
This data is consistent with what we’ve seen at STRe. We’ve seen an increase in orders for temporary talent, but there are still a lot of people still looking for assignments, but the cutbacks seem to have abated.
Here’s some numbers provided by public companies in the staffing industry:
• Kforce Inc., a Tampa FL-based professional staffing firm, reported third-quarter revenue fell 9.0% to $228.3 million from $250.9 million in the third quarter of 2008. However, third-quarter revenue rose 1.0% from the second quarter.
• Kforce’s finance & accounting division fell 19.3% to $41.3 million. Third-quarter finance and accounting revenue rose sequentially, from the second quarter, by 0.5%.
• Randstad Holding NV, the world’s second largest staffing firm reported third-quarter revenue fell 28.2% on a pro forma basis. However, the company cited positive signs in several markets. “It is encouraging that the revenue trend has become a little better through the quarter on average, a trend which has continued in October,” CEO Ben Noteboom said. The company’s professional business is stabilizing while other staffing is gradually picking up, he said.
• Spherion reported revenue per day in the first three weeks of October was up about 5% higher than in the third quarter.
As we enter the traditionally slower time between the holidays it’s encouraging to see improvement in the numbers. There are still a lot of people out of work, and the job market is adding jobs much slowly than we need. But at least the charts are moving up and to the right!