PRESS RELEASE
Brussels, 27th March 2017
50 MILLION PEOPLE GLOBALLY ACCESSED THE LABOUR MARKET
VIA AN EMPLOYMENT AGENCY IN 2015
The employment industry delivers € 417 billion in global sales revenues, with agency
work accounting for € 279 bn of the total, followed by MSP (€ 95 bn), Direct
Recruitment (€ 36.8 bn), RPO (€ 3.3 bn) and career management (€ 3 bn)
The World Employment Confederation, the voice of the employment industry at global level, publishes
its annual economic report today. The year-long research conducted in 50 countries addresses the
challenges of a changing world of work and illustrates the role of the employment industry in enabling
work, adaptation, security and prosperity.
The employment industry enables 50 million people to find work
Across the markets covered in the report, current trends show a diversification of the employment
industry: agency work had a net employment impact of more than 43 million jobs created with the USA,
China, Japan and India leading the ranking. The highest-placed European country is France in 5th place
with 2 million hires. In terms of penetration rate, agency work represents a limited part of the global
working population averaging just 1.7%. The USA leads the field at 2.2%, followed by Japan (2%) and
Europe (1.9%).
Employment agencies also guided some 3 million individuals through their career management or job
search. Managed Services Providers (MSP) and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) continue to
gain acceptance and penetration as a tool for more effective recruitment with 2.5 million people
worldwide involved. Finally, direct recruitment totaled 2.1 million placements in 2015.
Employment agencies enable adaptation by closing skills gaps and placing unemployed youth
in work
While the report clearly demonstrates that change is underway, forecasts vary in different industries and
regions: on average, before entering into agency work 33% of workers were unemployed while just 21%
returned to unemployment a year later. On another note, 43% of people starting agency work were
previously employed and 71% remained employed a year later. Almost one third of agency workers are
under the age of 25 and declare upskilling via agency work is key to staying employable.
“These numbers show two things: first, agencies provide both an entry point to the labour market and a
stepping stone to permanent hiring. Second, the industry creates decent jobs that would otherwise not
exist. In India for instance, 92% of companies would not make permanent hires if agency work was not
available”, says Denis Pennel, Managing Director at the World Employment Confederation.
The employment industry reduces frictional unemployment and has an impact on public budgets
Employment agencies contribute to reduce frictional unemployment by shortening the inevitable time
delays in finding a new job and ensuring better and faster matching of supply and demand for work. The
report finds an inverse correlation between the evolution of hours worked via an agency and the EU
unemployment rate in the EU-28. There is also evidence that high rates of agency work penetration tend
to reduce undeclared work. The report highlights striking facts in India where unemployment rates have
been cut by up to one half in states where the agency penetration rate is above 0.5 %. “By reducing
frictional unemployment, the employment industry contributes to public budgets. This saves
governments the cost of unemployment benefits while the provision of flexible workforce solutions leads
to a reduction of undeclared work, increasing social charges and corporate tax being paid”, comments
Annemarie Muntz, President of the World Employment Confederation.
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PRESS RELEASE
Brussels, 27th March 2017
RPO and MSP usage have a big impact on HR KPIs
Outsourcing of the recruiting function has risen steadily in the past few years. Notably, RPO adoption
has grown by 32% from 2011 until today. This practice is especially beneficial for organizations that fill
roles with high turnover and consistently require specific skill sets. Companies that invest in an RPO
provider declare they are able to reduce hiring costs by 38%. While 71% of “best-in-class” organizations
are more likely to use a Managed Services Provider.
About the World Employment Confederation
The World Employment Confederation is the voice of the employment industry at the global level, uniting
labour market enablers from 50 countries and 8 of the largest international workforce solutions and
brings access to and engagement with international policymakers (ILO, OECD, World Bank, IMF, IOM,
EU) and stakeholders (IOE, trade unions, academic world, think tanks, NGOs). It will be celebrating its
50th anniversary during a global conference to be held in Paris on September 28th and 29th.
The World Employment Confederation strives for recognition of the economic and social role played by
the employment industry in enabling work, adaptation, security and prosperity in our societies. In a fast
changing world of work, the enabling functions provided by the employment industry is more important
than ever (http://changingworld.work/). Thanks to its network of 169 000 employment agencies and 1.5
million HR specialists, the employment industry has been shaping the world of work since 1967.
The full report is accessible online: www.wecglobal.org/economicreport2017
For more extensive information, please contact Sotiris Gassialis at +32.494.13.56.78 or via e-mail
to [email protected]
Lexicon
Agency work is a triangular employment relationship, defined in ILO Convention 181 as “Services
consisting of employing workers with a view to making them available to a third party, who may be a
natural or legal person (‘user entreprise’) which assigns their tasks and supervises the execution of
these tasks”. All members of the World Employment Confederation are signatories of the ILO’s
Convention 181 that guarantees temporary agency work contributes to the realization of the Decent
Work Agenda objectives.
Career Management: Main services segments are individual outplacement services, executive
outplacement services, group outplacement services and other employment transition services. In these
segments, outplacement services companies provide a range of employment and career services.
These include resume writing, interview skills, jobs search strategies, coaching and career guidance.
Employers generally pay all of the costs associated with these services.
Direct Recruitment: Services for matching offers and applications for employment, without the private
employment agency becoming a party to the employment relationships which may arise therefrom,
including executive search & selection.
Managed Services Provision (MSP) is a service whereby a company takes on primary responsibility
for managing an organization’s contingent workforce program. Typical responsibilities of MSP include
overall program management, reporting and tracking, supplier selection and management, order
distribution and often consolidated billing.
Recruitment Process Outsourcing is a service by a third-party specialist provider, to assume the role
of the client’s recruiting department by owning and managing part or all of its recruitment process and
related recruitment supply chain partner relationships, provide the necessary skills, activities, tools,
technologies, and process methodologies.
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