The Full Desk Experience

Noah Yosif [00:00:00]:
One thing that staffing companies should be looking at is being able to think about how to leverage their unique knowledge and their unique insight to be able to provide that sort of consulting, project management, that sort of advisory expertise that only they can provide, rather than just an AI model. So being able to leverage their own unique knowledge and being able to leverage technology are going to be, I think, two game changers for staffing firms to not only survive, but thrive at a time where staffing demand just isn't what it was a couple of years ago.

Kortney Harmon [00:00:37]:
Hi, I'm Kortney Harmon, director of Industry relations at Crelate. This is the Industry Spotlight, a series of the Full desk experience, a Crelate original podcast. In this series, we will talk with top leaders and influencers who are shaping the talent industry, shining a light on popular trends, the latest news and the stories that laid the groundwork for their success. Welcome back to another episode of the Full Desk Experience Industry Spotlight. Welcome to the Full Desk Experience. I'm your host, Kortney Harmon, director of industry relations here at crelate. And today I am thrilled to welcome Noah Yosef. Noah is the chief economist, head of research at the American Staffing Association.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:25]:
And honestly, Noah brings an incredibly valuable perspective to our industry conversations as he leads ASA's economy and policy research initiatives supporting staffing companies across the United States. So, Noah, I know you have lots of goodies. I'm excited to talk to you. You are a speaker. You're a part of ASA on the Economic Affairs Committee of the World Government Confederation. Human. You do so many things. Thank you so much for taking your time out of your busy day to meet with me to talk all things staffing and recruiting.

Noah Yosif [00:01:59]:
Yeah, thanks, Kortney. Happy to be here.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:01]:
I love it when you joined. I obviously have all of these wonderful questions in my head and I'm like, okay, we can go down all of these things, but the ADP jobs report came out or the ADP report came out today, and I'm not gonna lie. Let's just start there and maybe we can have like a pulse check on our industry. But talk to me about what we're seeing. We saw a little few things that came out from that report talking about private sectors down from January to February. Give me all the things. Dissect this ADP report for us.

Noah Yosif [00:02:32]:
Yeah, absolutely, Kortney. So the ADP report was pretty disappointing in so many words. We only as the private sector added about 77,000 new jobs. And so really, when you look at this report within the broader context of where the labor market is right now, where we've seen hiring essentially fall to levels not seen since 2014, where workers sentiment is down significantly since the days of the great resignation. What the ADP's report essentially shows is that companies are not really too keen on bringing in additional headcount. And that means that workers are either going to be staying where they are for a little bit longer or. Or those who are unfortunate enough to be on the sidelines are going to have to push a little harder to be able to get back into the labor market.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:26]:
It's interesting. Tell me about that perspective too. I know we're going to talk post pandemic. Pandemic made certain numbers record highs. So in comparison, can we go in comparison like pre Covid to now where that stands? Because I think it's almost a different lens to look through. Are we significantly lower? Significantly higher from pre pandemic to today?

Noah Yosif [00:03:47]:
Yes. So we're at about where we were pre pandemic. The problem is, is that even pre pandemic, the labor market was still growing. It just wasn't growing that much. What we're seeing right now is that the labor market really isn't growing. And so therefore, when you have fewer opportunities on the labor market and an increased propensity for separations from the labor market, that is a recipe for for a slowdown. And so therefore, what we're going to want to see in the upcoming year is employers starting to have more of an appetite to bring on workers and for workers themselves to be able to test the waters of the labor market and look for that new opportunity. Because without that and with a slowdown within the labor market, that's when we're really going to be vulnerable to some of these greater economic policy shocks that might be coming on the horizon.

Kortney Harmon [00:04:42]:
Very interesting. Obviously we talked about those shifts in the labor market. What are trends that you're seeing in temporary staffing demand across maybe different sectors here in 2025?

Noah Yosif [00:04:52]:
No, that's a great question, Kortney. So quite broadly, because people is our industry's business, the staffing industry generally tends to follow trends within the labor market. So when there is a slowdown in the labor market, there's also a slowdown within staffing industry employment as well. However, that can be different depending on sectors. Right now, according to Asa's research, we really see current employment within the staffing industry being driven by two key sectors. The first is healthcare. Healthcare has its own very unique dynamics of supply and demand, but quite generally what we're seeing is that an increase in demand for healthcare support occupations. Think nurses, technicians, Et cetera, because we're seeing an increase or sustained demand for those occupations.

Noah Yosif [00:05:46]:
We are continuing to see that there are more jobs within the healthcare sector for staffing companies. We're also seeing a record number of jobs being created for staffing workers within what would be considered high tech services. So that would be engineering it, as well as general scientific jobs. A lot of that has to do with the fact that right now the broader economy is facing a productivity boom. With the advent of AI as well as the increase in labor costs, companies are looking to essentially figure out how to achieve their bottom line using the fewest amount of dollars possible. So therefore, they are relying a lot on what would essentially be workers that have these higher level skill sets, like computer programmers, technicians, things like that. And that's why we're also seeing an increase in demand within these high tech services. Now, looking at staffing employment generally, what we're seeing is that those sectors that are experiencing significant demand for staffing workers, sectors like healthcare as well as high tech services, those sectors quite broadly comprise a lower share of off staffing jobs than say, sectors in the economy that are not experiencing as much demand for new staffing workers, sectors like construction or like industrial.

Noah Yosif [00:07:13]:
And so therefore, what we're seeing is that while certain sectors are offsetting a general decline in staffing jobs, the majority of the contraction in staffing employment is being driven by sectors that generally have a high appetite for staffing workers, but just not a high appetite right now.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:34]:
Do you think AI is impacting those sectors as well? And maybe the reluctance of hiring extra headcount to use AI to fill the needs and the roles? Do you think that plays any part?

Noah Yosif [00:07:45]:
Absolutely. So I think that AI quite generally can affect the staffing industry within two ways. The first is how it affects the actual demand for different occupations that staffing workers are called to fill. Now, ASA's research suggests that for the majority of occupations, AI is actually going to be a compliment, not a substitute for these occupations. And so therefore, while staffing workers may need to have different skill sets in order to best utilize AI to achieve a company's bottom dollar, AI is not going to replace the occupation itself. Now, the other area where AI would definitely impact the staffing industry would be in recruitment and retention of workers themselves. You know, there was a study that was done by the McKinsey Global Institute that looked at the time it would take for a company, any company, to essentially use AI and stand up an AI program to fulfill a particular business task, whether that is, you know, a company's accounting functions, whether that is their marketing, their human resources function, et cetera. And essentially what this report showed was that the human resources functions for your general company, a generative AI application, could be stood up within the shortest amount of time.

Noah Yosif [00:09:10]:
In other words, what that means is that companies have a significant ability now to be able to automate their human resources functions in house. And so what that means for the staffing industry is that firms are going to have to stay one step ahead of the curve so that way they can continue to demonstrate the value that they bring to their clients. And a lot of that is going to be departing from the traditional staffing model of simply recruiting and placing workers. That's going to be relying on staffing firms unique knowledge of their local markets as well as of general business activity within the human resources staffing and recruiting space. So that way they can serve as a trusted human advisor to their clients.

Kortney Harmon [00:09:57]:
I love it and it's reassuring to hear that we go through revolutions of AI, industrial whatever, and how our jobs are affected by it. But it's reassuring to hear someone like yourself and your role say the same similar thing that we've been saying and just to hear and it's like it's there. It's just you have to be a different, you can't be an order taker, you have to be a consultant. So I love, I love that feedback.

Noah Yosif [00:10:21]:
No, that's exactly right, Kortney. And the reason for that is quite broadly AI, while certainly it's developing at a rapid pace right now, it, it still has not been able to capture a lot of the second and tertiary order thinking skills that we entrust humans. To do a perfect example, we could trust an AI program to be able to scan a resume and look for keywords. Most folks as of yet would not trust an AI application to make the decision between two very similar looking resumes. And so therefore right now what we're hearing not only from staffing companies, but from clients themselves, is that AI can be a good research assistant, it can't be a good researcher.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:05]:
I love that, Noah. We really talk and you know, as we all listen, on the pulse of the economy, some economists have debated whether or not we've achieved that soft landing. From your perspective, what indicators should staffing and recruiting professionals be watching to gauge economic stability?

Noah Yosif [00:11:23]:
Yeah, absolutely. So the definition of a soft landing is essentially where we can bring inflation back down to under 2% without causing a recession, which in layman's terms constitutes 2% consecutive quarters of negative growth. Now, while we haven't seen two quarters of negative growth. Inflation is still trending at about 3%. So in terms of whether a soft landing has been achieved, I would say not. Now, I would say as far as what indicators to look at, I might be a little biased here, but I would say at least for the staffing space, the ASA Staffing Index is a great place to start. Next, not only is staffing employment just in general a good leading indicator for where the economy is. Unfortunately, typical public data sets that are produced by the BLS and by the Census Bureau, those often can capture trends in the staffing employment between a month to a year behind when they're actually published.

Noah Yosif [00:12:22]:
And so therefore the ASA Weekly Staffing Index, this is a pulse that essentially goes out to staffing companies every week. It updates in real time. And a lot of times backward analysis basically shows that the movements within the ASA Weekly Staffing Index tend to mirror the public estimates that get published, say a week or a year behind when the trend actually occurred. So highly would recommend the Weekly Staffing Index to take a look at where employment trends in the industry are going. Looking more broadly though, I would say that right now, as I've mentioned before, the labor market is currently stuck. We're not seeing employers hire that much and we're also seeing workers not move around so much. And so therefore there are two indicators that I'm looking at to be able to determine when the labor market is going to start to see more momentum and in turn when the staffing industry is also going to reap some of the rewards that momentum. The first is total compensation costs.

Noah Yosif [00:13:25]:
I typically look at the employment cost Index, which is published on a quarterly basis by the bls. Now this is an index that essentially looks at how much are employers spending to bring on headcount. And what we can essentially see is that total compensation costs are above their pre pandemic growth. And so because of that, we know that employers are going to be a little bit more hesitant to bring on new employees. The second indicator that I look at is what's called the labor leverage ratio. Now this is an indicator that came onto the economic scene quite recently actually by another labor economist named Aaron Sojourner. And basically what this indicator looks at is who has more influence in the employment relationship. Is that the employer or is that the employee? What we as economists generally know is that when employees have more leverage or more influence in their relationship over their employers, then they're in a better bargaining position to either ask for more benefits to get a job, that they're truly satisfied with or go out into the open labor market and find something new that better suits what they're looking for.

Noah Yosif [00:14:34]:
Now, when these employees leave, employers are usually caught off guard or it's not the most ideal for employers. And so therefore employees, employers want to fill those empty roles as soon as possible. Conversely, however, when employers have more leverage in the relationship than their employees, employers can not always align the positions to what employees are looking for or employers might be prone to letting employees go. Now in this situation, employers are not always going to be looking to replace lost headcount. For for example, during a recession, employers might cut staff and they might not be looking to necessarily replace them anytime soon. So looking at the labor leverage ratio, when labor leverage is in favor of employees, that generally means that we're going to see more quits and more momentum within the labor market. And right now what we're seeing is that the labor leverage ratio is below its pre pandemic growth. In other words, that means that employees aren't moving around enough and there's not enough momentum in the labor market.

Noah Yosif [00:15:38]:
So keeping it brief, the two indicators that I'm looking at is when total compensation costs come down and when labor leverage moves up, that's when I believe we're going to start to see more momentum within the labor market, which will then yield rewards to the staffing history.

Kortney Harmon [00:15:53]:
I love it. You talked one thing about wages there. Talk to me about how are wages pressures evolving in the temporary staffing sector compared to permanent? Is there a difference? Are you seeing a difference between the two?

Noah Yosif [00:16:04]:
Yeah, absolutely. So quite broadly, we have seen record levels of inflation and we've also seen interest rates being held at 22 year highs. So because of that we have seen off a faster amount of growth within staffing wages. But that broadly mirrors what we're seeing in the labor market based on these general conditions that we're seeing in the economy. However, in this current environment that we're in, where total compensation costs are high and therefore employers tend to have more leverage in the relationship than employees, employers are the ones who are setting the wages. And so because they're the ones that are setting the wages and because employers, on a general basis of probability, would prefer workers that fit a traditional full time part time paradigm, we do see that there is some, some a bit more of a downtrend in staffing wages relative to that of the economy at large, relative to that of the labor market at large. And that just has to do with the fact that right now temporary workers are not in demand as much as they were say, two, three years ago during the shortages that we saw in the. Great resignation.

Kortney Harmon [00:17:19]:
Thank you, I appreciate that. Obviously we talked about things are slow right now in the idea whenever think about insights from ASA on maybe time to fill metrics across different industries. Are we seeing efficiency improvements or new bottlenecks from the things that are happening in today's labor force right now?

Noah Yosif [00:17:41]:
Yeah, so we're seeing that time to fill is staying relatively flat. And a large part of that is just due to the fact that we're not seeing that much momentum within these positions more generally. However, one thing that is going to be an interesting longer term trend is going to be the role of AI as well as productivity gains in reducing these time to fill metrics. Particularly what we see is that staffing firms within the industrial space and also within the office clerical vertical, they have been quite successful in using AI to essentially speed up the screening process. So that way it is a better experience for candidates as well as clients who are interviewing them. And so therefore, what we believe will happen long term is that we will see a decline in time to fill rates just based on the productivity gains that we're seeing.

Kortney Harmon [00:18:36]:
Great insights. I was shared some stuff before our conversation from Megan and it was really about that post pandemic sector behavior. So I want to dive into that. Are you good with that?

Noah Yosif [00:18:48]:
Absolutely. Let's go.

Kortney Harmon [00:18:49]:
Okay, so you've done some significant research around major sectors, similar market reactions until the pandemic, when their reactions to overall conditions changed and never fully went back. Can you explain this whole phenomenon and really the implications that it has on staffing firms today?

Noah Yosif [00:19:08]:
Yeah, absolutely. So essentially what we saw before the pandemic is when you look at the distribution of staffing employees by different sector, they all tended to move in a similar direction. When workers in health care saw ebbs or flows in employment demand, we saw a very similar ebb and flow within light industrials. And the reason for that is because the these sectors were all influenced at a very similar rate based on what we saw as generally stable economic conditions. The economy was not growing super fast or super slow. Inflation was in check, interest rates were low, but not super low. The economy was in moderation. Because of that, these staffing employment within these different sectors moved in tandem with one another.

Noah Yosif [00:19:59]:
However, after the pandemic, everything went out of whack. And the reason for that was because sectors experienced different levels of labor supply and demand. And those levels of supply and demand essentially influenced where and how much staffing burns could essentially come in and supplement their clients needs. So, for example, after the pandemic, health care still saw a significant increase in demand because of not only the pandemic, but also because of the displacement that we saw in communities where, you know, people were remote, working people would be moving out, trying to get closer to family, that would leave rural areas, you know, with a lack of qualified medical workers. And because of that, and because demand was so strong within specific areas, that's why we saw that health care tended to do really well when it came to its demand for staffing employment. Conversely, on the other hand, what we saw is that for the office clerical vertical was that, you know, a combination of rising interest rates, employers having to cut costs, in addition to the prevalence of remote work, as well as the productivity boom, and companies beginning to use AI very much within a research assistant capacity, those all constitute downward pressure on demand within the office and clerical vertical for temporary workers. And so because of that, what while we saw that demand for healthcare workers increase, demand for office clerical workers decreased. And so what essentially we're seeing at a very high level when we look at the distribution of staffing employees by sector, is that those sectors that did not immediately over hire in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, those sectors that have unique supply and demand constraints, for example, health care or even the federal government, which up until very recently would be a stable area of the economy.

Noah Yosif [00:21:59]:
So sectors that have unique supply and demand levels, and then finally sectors that are interest rate sensitive. So those sectors that are likely to see total compensation costs fall faster because of the rate cuts that the Fed is expected to do this year, albeit at a more slower rate, those are going to be the sectors where we see staffing demand increase more and versus those sectors that are more just in line with the general economy, those are going to be sectors that essentially have a drag on staffing employment.

Kortney Harmon [00:22:33]:
Okay, and you might have just answered that. So I'm going to ask you another question in another way around all the things that you just said.

Noah Yosif [00:22:39]:
Sure.

Kortney Harmon [00:22:39]:
I'm thinking of our staffing and recruiting friends that are listening to this. How should they adjust their strategies to account for these new sectors? Or are there any emerging opportunities that maybe didn't exist pre pandemic?

Noah Yosif [00:22:52]:
No, that's a good question. So I think a data point that really stands out to me and that's looking at the breakdown of staffing industry revenue over the last 20 years. Now, in 2004, 2005, what we saw was that revenue from the traditional staffing model that comprised about 90, 95% of total industry revenue. And essentially after the pandemic, all the way up until 2024, what we've seen is that that traditional staffing model has only comprised about 75% of industry revenue. In other words, what that suggests is that staffing companies need to and are getting creative when it comes to figuring out how they can sustain sales even when there is not as much demand for temporary workers. And so, like I'd mentioned earlier, one thing that staffing companies should be looking at is being able to think about how to leverage their unique knowledge and their unique insight to be able to provide that sort of consulting, project management, that sort of advisory expertise that only they can provide, rather than just an AI model. Quite similarly, I know that a lot of staffing firms, they are looking at harnessing AI in order to lower their overhead cost. And I think that that's also going to be very important for staffing companies to not only get on par with what the majority of their tech based competition can do, but then being able to work off of that and say, okay, if we can reduce our time to fill rate by X percentage that extra time, we might be able to leverage that to be able to compare the clients that have applied to a certain position to the market for those clients, things like that.

Noah Yosif [00:24:45]:
So being able to leverage their own unique knowledge and being able to leverage technology are going to be, I think, two game changers for staffing firms to not only survive, but thrive at a time where staffing demand just isn't what it was a couple of years ago.

Kortney Harmon [00:24:59]:
Those are great pieces of advice. I love that.

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Kortney Harmon [00:26:08]:
We've been talking just us Based right now. Can I take it global and ask you a question there?

Noah Yosif [00:26:14]:
Absolutely.

Kortney Harmon [00:26:15]:
Okay. As someone, obviously from your perspective, who represents ASA on the Economic Affairs Committee with the World Employment Confederation, what global market trends should US Staffing firms be aware of?

Noah Yosif [00:26:28]:
So I think the most overarching trend that I see is that as much as, say, some politicians might want to push back on it, globalization is here and it's not going away. And so therefore, we live in a very interconnected economy that is prone to fluctuations in migration, that is prone to shocks coming from countries, trade policies, tariffs. And so because of that, that leaves domestic labor markets and their respective staffing industries vulnerable to these sorts of shifts that might occur. And so therefore, what I would say is that staffing companies that not only are focused on the internal dynamics of their labor markets, but are also attuned to trends within the broader economy. For example, are US Firms doing enough to account for the impact of near shoring via Mexico and the competition that those firms could constitute within certain sectors like certain services, construction, oil and gas, things like that? That's going to be an issue. Similarly, are staffing companies doing enough to protect themselves from tariffs that are being in place? Right. There are many staffing companies right now in the United States that do a significant amount of business in Europe that are going to be prone to some disruption if the EU goes ahead with its blanket tariffs on most services elements within the economy of the European Union. And so because of that, staffing companies need to account for those rising costs.

Noah Yosif [00:28:07]:
And they may need to either adjust their own internal supply chains by working in the United States, or they may have to adjust them around the world based on, on other considerations. And so therefore, simply just having a good understanding of where the global labor market is, that's going to be another.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:26]:
Important strength for staff, probably more now than ever. It seems like it's more of a conversation on a global effort than, than it ever has been before in my time here. I mean, there's certain things in the past, the gdpr, the certain things that have hit, that we really needed to pay attention to on a global scale, but this seems like now's the time.

Noah Yosif [00:28:46]:
Yes, very much so.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:48]:
Okay, fair. Let's talk about the future of work. I know you don't have a crystal ball, I really wish you did. But let's talk about economic research with asa. What emerging skills or credentials do you think is going to be most valuable for temporary workers in the next two to three years?

Noah Yosif [00:29:05]:
Absolutely. So I mentioned earlier that right now, what we're seeing is growth that's primarily being driven by two segments of the staffing industry. That's healthcare, and that's your high tech services. I would actually include healthcare within high tech services because that's really going to be the key trend that we're seeing within a lot of these segments of the economy and the occupations within them that are seeing the highest amount of growth, the one commonality amongst all of them is that they require a higher order of skill sets. And so therefore, I think that where the greatest demand for new staffing talent is going to be is employees that have that STEM background, that have that higher order of education. That's just where jobs are growing fastest. And so that's where I think staffing companies are going to have to look to in order to get the talent that is most in need from clients.

Kortney Harmon [00:30:02]:
Okay, let's do the flip side of that coin. What about the aging demographic? With our aging workforce, how is that demographic changing or reshaping the economics of staffing? Like that's the flip side of the coin right now.

Noah Yosif [00:30:16]:
That is, that is. So looking at demographic trends is actually one of my favorite parts of doing research in staffing industry. And that's because there are really two interesting trends that we see. So first, we know that just in general, people are living longer. Not as long as the Bible, but, you know, just long. And so because of that, essentially we are seeing the emergence of what's called the silver line economy, in which, you know, we see an increase in the number of older workers who are either staying where they are, or essentially looking at different kinds of work arrangements, moving from full time to part time to contracting, et cetera. And so therefore, an opportunity, I think, for our industry is going to be to be able to get more talent from these older workers who do not necessarily want to completely retire full time, who want to be able to still earn an income based on their skills. I think that older workers are going to be a significant source of staffing companies additions to their talent bases.

Noah Yosif [00:31:25]:
Conversely, on the other hand, there are fewer younger workers entering the labor force. Now, this is due to a variety of factors, declining birth rates, economic conditions, et cetera. But because we're not seeing an adequate amount of replacement in the labor force, as we saw, say, in the early 2000s or the 1990s, the question for staffing companies is where are these young workers who are going into the labor force? Where are they going? What we do see is that in terms of rates of entrepreneurship and in terms of rates of non traditional Work arrangements. Younger workers are more likely to be able to pursue those sorts of paths given not only the unique generational challenges that they have gone through. Graduating during the Great Recession, being in the peak of their careers during the coronavirus pandemic, but also just shifting attitudes about. We're well past the days where one would work for 40, 50 years in one company and then just expect to retire on that company's dime. We see that rates of job switching and job hopping are very frequent amongst this younger generation. And so therefore the younger generation, albeit a smaller pool, you know, that also presents a very unique opportunity for staffing companies to be able to recruit these younger workers into these sorts of positions that are conducive with not only their worldview, but also their preferences when it comes to getting a job.

Kortney Harmon [00:33:01]:
What's the average time for that younger workforce of changing jobs?

Noah Yosif [00:33:06]:
There are a variety of estimates, but what we're seeing is that the research generally converges around three years. So a younger worker generally stays at a company for about three years before either quitting or entertaining new offers. And actually, to be fair, before I ended up taking this role at asa, I ended up coming from two previous trade associations, both of which were three year stints. One had to do with downsizing, the other had to do with a merger and acquisition. But my own experience, I think, you know, kind of mirrors what I would say a lot of younger workers go through when it comes to not only finding a job, but keeping a job. I think that's why we're also going to see this younger generation be a lot more conducive to the model of work that staffing firms are offering.

Kortney Harmon [00:33:53]:
I love it. Thank you. I put you on the spot on that one. When we talk about those economic incentives or challenges that are driving the growth, and I'm going to call them the liquid workforce from the temporary, the gig, the contract workers. What are those incentives or challenges that are driving the growth?

Noah Yosif [00:34:10]:
Yeah. So you know what, asa, we recently put out a survey of staffing employees. Now, this is very different from a lot of the research that we do because we primarily look at our members, which are staffing firms. So when thinking about what makes an employee willing to entertain the possibility of working on a temporary basis or on a contract basis, one of the biggest factors was simply the flexibility of that work. What we saw was that respondents who were single parents, who had disabilities, who were working multiple jobs, who had lower levels of income, folks who just generally needed that sort of flexibility for one reason or another. They were not only prone to the temporary work model, but they were also more likely to stay within that model. Additionally, what we see is that we know that staffing employment can be a bridge to a more permanent or stable career field. And so we also see is that younger workers, workers who have been either laid off or retired or who are otherwise looking to for a career change or for a career switch, they're also prone to the staffing model based on the fact that it can provide them with that on the job experience that they can then take to be able to contribute more meaningfully in an occupation or in an industry that more aligns with their interests.

Kortney Harmon [00:35:41]:
Amazing. I'm going to ask you an ASA specific question just because, you know, we're in this industry and I've known of ASA for many, many years and have been a part of all the wonderful things that they do. But let's talk about the data with it. How is ASA using your economic data to help staffing and recruiting firms make more strategic business decisions? And you've mentioned a lot of them already here.

Noah Yosif [00:36:04]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I think that when it comes to the data that we provide, there are a couple of areas that staffing firms can't get enough of when it comes to business insights. The first is looking ahead. So what we've done at ASA is that we've actually developed a model that looks at trends within the economy, the labor market and staffing industry. We're actually going to be debuting this model at a webinar on Monday. It's going to be at 1pm Eastern Time for anyone who's listening to this podcast. But essentially we're going to be debuting this model and the estimates that we have in March of where we see gdp, unemployment, inflation, staffing, employment, et cetera over the course of the year. So that's one area where I think that we provide a lot of value added to our members.

Noah Yosif [00:36:55]:
The second is being able to provide a detailed snapshot of the staffing industry. Right now, a lot of your data sources are either accurate but not timely or timely but not accurate. And so what ASA tries to do with our estimates is that we try to strive for both. We try to provide indices like the weekly staffing index or estimates that not only are captured within a reasonable timeframe of when we release them, but that are also accurate to what our firms are seeing. And so one of the breakout of staffing employment by sector, that's something that isn't available in a lot of public data sets. Sia, one of our research partners, they have certainly tried to break out staffing revenue by different segments. And so what we tried to do is that we tried to attempt that same feat, but by employment. And so the indices that we're putting out provide our members with a little bit more of a detailed picture of where current staffing employees are going, what verticals are doing well, what verticals are not doing well.

Noah Yosif [00:38:04]:
And then I would say that the third batch of statistics that our department puts out is benchmarks. Because every staffing company, whether you're Robert Half or your mom and pop shop, you want to know how you're doing against your competitors as well as the broader labor market. And so what we try and do is that we try and gather intelligence not only on staffing companies, but on clients. So that way we can get insights like a client can stand up a generative AI program that is able to take care of most of their human resource functions within one to three months. So that's the standard that a staffing company is going to have to hold themselves to. We also have a compensation report that we recently completed in 2024 and that went on sale about two weeks ago, and it's available to ASA members. So I like to think that we provide our members with a well rounded picture of the industry and a good idea of what are the broader trends in the labor market and economy that are driving momentum within the staff industry.

Kortney Harmon [00:39:05]:
I love it. So many amazing resources. Thank you so much. I could talk to you and ask you questions for hours, but I. I won't hold you for hours. Is there anything that you haven't shared with us yet, Noah, that staffing and recruiting companies need to pay attention to whether it's forward facing today? Is there anything that sticks in your mind as one last thought before we close out for today?

Noah Yosif [00:39:27]:
Yeah, absolutely. The staffing industry has experienced quite a fall since the great resignation. And that is due largely to circumstances outside of the industry's control, things in the labor market and the economy at large. But when I look at the decline in staffing employment and then I see that for the better part of two years, staffing sales have remained relatively flat. They haven't gone down as much. What that shows me is that the staffing industry is not only good at addressing challenges, but anticipating them before they arise and being creative about how they go about gathering revenue, even when the traditional model seems to have a couple of flaws now. So therefore, what I would say is that I think even though the staffing industry is recovering at a speed that is a bit slow and that is conducive with where the broader labor market is. Staffing companies have plenty of opportunities to stay ahead of the curve, and that is not only by taking a data driven approach to your client engagement, your talent, or your recruitment and retention strategies through business planning, but also just ensuring that you think a little outside the box when it comes to how you position yourselves for the labor market once it opens back up.

Noah Yosif [00:40:51]:
And so in all, I'm very optimistic about where the staffing industry might be within a year or two from now.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:57]:
I love it. No, I can't thank you enough for sharing your experience and your insights with our audience today. Those economic factors affecting our industry, you talked value, you talked how to navigate them through our market conditions. So hopefully I know our listeners have gotten data points, actionable insights for our listeners. I am going to attach Noah's LinkedIn profile and the ASA website for your research as well if you want to dive in. Noah, thank you so much for spending the time with me today. I loved every bit of this.

Noah Yosif [00:41:29]:
Great. Thank you Kortney.

Kortney Harmon [00:41:32]:
I'm Kortney Harmon with crelate. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Industry Spotlight, a new series from the Full Desk Experience. New episodes will be dropping monthly. Be sure you're subscribed to our podcast so you can catch the next Industry Spotlight episode and all episodes of the Full Desk Experience here or wherever you listen.