American Staffing Association - Staffing Success Special Issue

help employment is a particularly strong coincident economic indicator when the economy is emerging from a recession.

Just a week after the association’s results were published, the ASA Staffing Index troughed. The index showed that staffing employment reached its lowest point the week of June 29 through July 5, 2009 (see Figure 2). Thereafter, sustained growth in staffing employment ensued. The recession had ended (as confirmed 15 months later by the business cycle dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nongovernmental body that decides when recessions begin and end).

The ASA Staffing Index provides a
near real-time gauge of staffing industry
employment and overall economic
activity. It tracks weekly changes in
temporary and contract employment,
with results reported nine days after the
close of a work week (see the sidebar
“Methodology of ASA Economic
Surveys,” on page 46).

Staffing as an Employment Indicator

ASA analysis of government data shows that temporary help employment is a strong coincident economic indicator when the economy is emerging from a recession. Additionally, staffing jobs are a leading employment indicator. Changes

in staffing job numbers usually precede changes in overall nonfarm employment (excluding temporary help) by one to two quarters. Based on the 1972 through 2008 data, the relationship was strongest with staffing jobs leading nonfarm employment by two quarters during periods of normal economic growth. When the economy was emerging from a recession, staffing jobs were a modest one-quarter leading indicator of overall job growth. All things considered, staffing employment has historically been a solid leading indicator of nonfarm employment by three to six months.

What’s happened since the end of the Great Recession?

Using BLS seasonally adjusted data (which had been used in the analysis), staffing job growth was first detected in September 2009.7 Nonfarm employment began an upward trend six months later, in March 2010.8 ➤

52 Weeks of ASA Staffing Index: June 2006 (When the Index Was Introduced at 100) Through July 2011

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Figure 2: Staffing Employment Is Usually Cyclical, Lowest at the Beginning of the Year and Highest Toward the End. The
Pattern Exhibited in 2007 Was Most Typical. The 2010 Pattern Was Similar, But the Rate of Growth Was Much Stronger
Than Usual.