Staffing industry revenue is estimated to fall by double digits in nearly all 14 of the world’s largest staffing markets as Covid-19 takes its toll, according to a report released today by SIA.
SIA’s interim market update refines its previous forecasts published on May 4, 2020, in the light of more recent economic and health data.
“Given the fast-moving nature of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have taken the unprecedented step of providing an interim update to our global market forecasts,” said John Nurthen, SIA’s executive director of global research.
“While each country is on its own trajectory, the common recovery pattern now emerging in most Western economies is that of a ‘swoosh’, reflecting a sudden fall, quick partial recovery, but a slower path to a full recovery and we have refined our base-case assumptions to reflect this,” Nurthen said. “At the same time, we have not been able to eliminate the possibility of a worse outcome resulting in further halts to business activity.”
US staffing revenue this year is projected to fall by 17% under a “base case” scenario and by 30% under a “longer outbreak” scenario. The UK staffing market is forecast to have the worst performance in 2020 with a drop of 27% under the base-case scenario and 45% under the longer outbreak scenario.
Only Japan and China are not expected to see double-digit declines in staffing revenue. Japanese staffing revenue is expected to increase by 2% under the base case and decrease by just 3% under the longer outbreak. Chinese staffing revenue is projected to either grow by 3% in the base case or fall by 5% in the longer outbreak scenario.
SIA’s base-case “swoosh” scenario assumes the virus does not return significantly next winter or in additional waves of outbreaks, and that country governments around the world can control outbreaks.
For the longer “W-shaped” scenario, SIA considers the absence of a workable vaccine where lockdowns continue for significant stretches of this year with ongoing spread in many countries. It also considers new lockdowns in areas where Covid-19 spikes while countries are working to reopen economies. Another factor in this scenario: governments may exhaust their ability to use monetary and fiscal policy for relief.
Looking ahead to 2021, staffing revenue is expected to increase in all countries under either scenario with India and China showing the fastest growth of 20% under the base case. US recovery in 2021 is forecast to be at 11% under the base case which means the market does not get back to 2019 levels.
The report provides trends for the fourteen largest staffing markets including (in order of size) the US, Japan, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, China, Australia, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Belgium, India and Spain.
SIA’s next update to its global market forecasts is scheduled for November 2020.
The full report is available to corporate members of SIA.