Commercial hours remain at highest level of 2026
Commercial hours remained at their highest level of the year for a second week, and are now 3% ahead of the same week last year, the strongest year-over-year performance since late 2024. Professional hours and IT hours both fell significantly due to the Presidents Day holiday. This decline led total U.S. staffing hours to fall slightly this week, but they remain 2% above 2025 levels driven by the strong commercial results.
IT Staffing Indicator
IT staffing hours holding steady with 2025
Commentary for the week ending February 21, 2026
- The IT indicator declined from 114 to 107, a -4.9% change. Like the rest of the professional segment, IT hours are heavily impacted by Presidents Day.
- IT hours are at the same level they were this week in 2025, IT hours have been at or above 2025 hours since January 10th.
Staffing Industry Analysts’ perspective
US Staffing hours remained close to their highest level year-to-date, despite the Presidents’ Day holiday-related business closures. Not only did staffing demand remain firm during a holiday week, but the year-on-year comparison improved to +2%. IT staffing hours remained even with their level from a year ago.
The SIA | Bullhorn Staffing Indicator historical data shows that the Presidents’ Day holiday has had a greater impact on Professional hours than Commercial hours. It appears that many temporary workers in professional roles log fewer hours during the holiday week as compared with temporary workers in commercial occupations who appear to work roughly the same number of hours as in other weeks that have no holiday. There is also a geographic factor. While Presidents’ Day is a federal holiday, a number of states do not observe the holiday with work closures.
Readings for the next stretch of weeks (a succession of 13 weeks with no federal holidays until Memorial Day) should provide a good window of visibility on market dynamics. In both 2025 and 2024, we note that the last week in January marked the high-water mark for the first half of the year; not the case this year. In addition, it would appear that in 2026 the staffing industry has more potential to show some growth due to factors such as improvement in major client industries such as manufacturing, which has been in a downturn for the last three years, and pockets of demand such as data center construction.
Looking ahead, US temporary staffing continues to face headwinds in the form of sluggish growth in the overall US labor market, low rates of voluntary turnover, policy uncertainty, geopolitical shocks, and uncertainty regarding the impact of AI, leading to a continued cautious approach to hiring from clients. Nevertheless, on the bright side, according to the latest BLS estimates, temporary help employment grew sequentially in November, December, and January, suggesting a potential turning point toward a more positive trajectory for the staffing industry. For more insights, please see our US Economic and Labor Market Trends (November 2025), our February 2026 US Jobs Report, our US Staffing Industry Pulse Survey: January and our most recent US Staffing Industry Forecast Update.
About the SIA Bullhorn Staffing Industry Indicator
The SIA | Bullhorn Staffing Indicator is a unique tool for gauging near real time weekly trends in the volume of temporary staffing delivered by US staffing firms. Each week the Indicator reports data for the week that ended ten days prior to the release. It reflects weekly hours worked by temporary workers across a sample of staffing companies in the US that utilize Bullhorn’s technology solutions. The Indicator is weighted and benchmarked against US Bureau of Labor Statistics data to approximate the composition of the staffing industry by skill. While the indicator does not presume to perfectly reflect the entire universe of US staffing firms, it does represent a sizable sample of the US staffing industry, reflecting a wide range of occupations, client industry verticals, and geographic footprint that spans the country.
The Indicator can be used by staffing firms to benchmark their past and current performance, as well as a tool for forecasting near term industry trends and outlook.
As the US temporary staffing industry has often functioned as a co-incident indicator for the US labor market and economy, the SIA | Bullhorn Staffing Indicator is also useful for a broader audience of business leaders and investors who are seeking real-time insight.
The Indicator is a joint custom research effort between Bullhorn and industry advisor Staffing Industry Analysts.
Revisions and Technical notes on the SIA | Bullhorn Staffing Indicator
We note the readings for the last 4 weeks are subject to revision and so should be viewed as preliminary, with the reading for the last recorded week the most likely to be revised in next week’s data release. For further information on how the Indicator has been created and detailed technical notes please refer to the methodology.
