Every Agency recruiter in the world must see these numbers.

Recruiters cop a lot of flak.

Criticising agency recruiters seems like a global sport sometimes. Just peruse LinkedIn on any given day.

And right now there is not much good news of any kind. Let alone for recruiters.

Till now.

Agency recruitment is booming.

Forget those ignorant, clapped-out doomsayers sitting on the sidelines without a clue, predicting the demise of recruitment. (which they have done for over 10 years BTW). Don’t worry about HR tech wannabees claiming the invention of  ‘the great recruitment disrupter’.

Not now. Not for a while.

Here is the data.

The global private employment agency industry was worth € 473 billion in 2018 (That is USD $ 541 Billion) – up nearly 2% compared with 2017. (Just to confirm, that is Billions of Dollars. Spent by employers on agency fees. An all-time record).

Direct recruitment (permanent placements) fared well in 2018, with nearly all the major markets expanding.

By region, Europe and APAC saw the strongest growth in direct recruitment in 2018, up 7.2% and 7.6% year-on-year respectively. In Europe, this was largely driven by double-digit growth in the UK direct recruitment market (12.6%), while 15.2% growth in the Chinese direct recruitment market in 2018 drove development in the APAC region.

Overall, 57.7 million people were placed by private employment agencies in 2018.

That, my friends, is a lot of lives impacted. And many companies served with great talent.

The network of recruitment agencies continues to grow.

In 2018, more than 157,000 private employment agencies were in operation with branches across the globe, and more than 2.4 million employees are working in agency branches around the world.

So next time someone tells you recruiters are hopeless and dying out – well LOL – not quite!

The number of agencies was up 4.6% in 2018 compared to the previous year. However, internal staff rose by only 1% to 2.4 million as automation of business processes became more prevalent. (This is instructive. As I have precited for a while, our industry will grow, but not all recruiters will thrive).

The US ranked as the largest market for private employment agencies in terms of both the number of workers placed and revenue.

The five largest countries in terms of workers placed were:

1. US, 16.8 million
2. China, 10.8 million
3. Japan, 3.8 million
4. India, 3.3 million
5. Mexico, 3.0 million

The World Employment Confederation reported revenue for the global private employment services industry was €473 billion (US$541 billion) in 2018. The US, Japan and the UK accounted for 54% of that total.

Largest countries in terms of 2018 revenue for private employment services were:

1. US, €117.3 billion (US$134 billion)
2. Japan, €49.9 billion (US$57 billion)
3. UK, €37.7 billion (US$43 billion)
4. Germany, €34.3 billion (US$39 billion)
5. France, €22.1 billion (US$25 billion)

Australia is 6th and Netherlands 7th.

2018 is the latest data of this quality we have. Anecdotally 2019 was even better.  2020 is a potential hot mess. Who knows how the next 12 to 24 months will play out?

Our industry has a myriad of issues. Technology will impact big chunks of what we do. Economic conditions are almost certain to weaken, maybe even drastically. It’s no time for complacency.

But for now, recruitment continues to grow.

For a simple reason. What we provide is needed, and we overwhelmingly do a good job of providing it.

Recruiters stand proud.

Data sourced from WEC Economic Report and Staffing Industry Index.

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