US Recruiting Firms

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US Recruiting Firms

Key Takeaways

  • According to IBISWorld's report, the total number of recruiting companies in the US in 2022 is 10,950.
  • The number of staffing and recruiting companies in the US before the COVID-19 pandemic was around 25,000 (11,000 recruiting companies and 14,000 staffing companies).
  • The states in the US with the highest number of employment and recruiting companies are California (1,664), New York (1,149), and Texas (1,107).

Introduction

This research provides information on the total number of recruiting companies in the US in 2022. This is followed by some additional information, including the states in the US with the highest number of recruitment companies, a breakdown of the number of recruitment companies in the US for different years, and the number of recruitment companies operating in the US before the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of the research have been corroborated across multiple databases to verify the accuracy of the findings. More information on the topic has been presented below, along with an outline of the research strategy.

Number of Recruiting Companies in the US

  • According to a report on IBISWorld, the total number of employment and recruiting agencies in the US in 2022 is 10,950.
  • The employment and recruiting industry covered by the above report comprises the traditional recruiting companies and the executive recruiting companies that specialize in the recruitment of upper management candidates.

Additional Information

  • According to the triangulation performed in the research strategy section below, the estimated number of recruiting companies in the US before the COVID-19 pandemic was 11,000. This estimation nearly matches the number of employment and recruiting agencies in the US (11,236 in 2018 and 11,233 in 2019) provided by the report on IBISWorld.
  • A chart showing the breakdown of the number of employment and recruiting companies in the US for different years has been presented below.
  • According to the data provided in the chart, the number of employment and recruiting companies in the US had remained steady over the 2012-2019 period. A notable decline was seen in the number of employment and recruiting companies in 2020 (10,594) compared to the data from 2019 (11,233).
  • The states in the US with the highest number of employment and recruiting companies are California (1,664), New York (1,149), and Texas (1,107).
  • The highest costs for these companies "as a percentage of revenue are Wages (52.3%), Purchases (17.9%), and Rent & Utilities (1.8%)."
  • According to a report by the American Staffing Association, the number of staffing and recruiting businesses in the US before the COVID-19 pandemic was around 25,000. While 56% of those companies belonged to the temporary and contract staffing sector, the remaining 44% belonged to the recruitment sector. This data was used for the triangulation performed in the research strategy section.
  • The total annual sales for the search and placement industry in the US dropped by 28% to $17.6 billion in 2020 compared to the data from 2019.

Research Strategy

For this research on the number of recruiting companies in the US, we leveraged the most reputable sources of information that were available in the public domain, including IBISWorld, American Staffing Association, and Your Article Library. For this research, we excluded staffing firms from our analysis and focused solely on recruiting firms. The report on IBISWorld provides the number of employment and recruitment agencies in the US instead of just recruitment agencies. Upon looking deeper into the report, we found that the employment and recruitment agencies sector covers the traditional recruiting companies and the executive recruiting companies that specialize in the recruitment of upper management candidates. Since both types of companies are from the recruitment sector, we decided to include the data from the report. In addition to the number of recruiting companies, we have also provided additional information on the recruitment industry of the US. A breakdown of the number of recruitment companies in the US from 2012 to 2022 has also been presented in the research.

We were able to corroborate the data from IBISWorld with the data from the American Staffing Association (ASA). The ASA has provided the number of staffing and recruitment companies (25,000) that were operating in the US before the COVID-19 pandemic. The ASA has also specified that the two sectors under the staffing and recruitment industry are temporary & contract staffing and selection & placement. Around 56% of the total companies belonged to the temporary and contract staffing sector (staffing companies). Therefore, we were able to calculate the percentage of companies in the selection & placement sector. We further confirmed that the selection & placement sector lies under the purview of recruiting companies using the definition from Your Article Library. Thereafter, the following calculations were made:

Percentage of recruiting companies= 100% — 56% (Percentage of staffing companies) = 44%
Number of recruiting companies = 44% of 25,000 (Staffing + Recruitment Companies) = 11,000

We compared this data with the pre-pandemic data from IBISWorld's report. Since both numbers were around 11,000, we were able to confirm that the number of employment and recruitment agencies provided in IBISWorld's report is in fact the number of total recruitment agencies in the US. In this way, the research was concluded.

Did this report spark your curiosity?

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