Staffing hours show seasonal January ramp-up
Staffing hours continued to improve throughout January, following the usual pattern for the start of the year. All segments experienced strong week-over-week increases. However, hours remain slightly below the same week in 2025, despite a week of positive year-over-year growth. Professional hours are particularly weak compared with last year, reflecting ongoing client caution.
IT Staffing Indicator
IT staffing hours slightly below 2025
Commentary for the week ending January 17, 2026
- The IT indicator improved from 101 to 108, 1% behind where hours were the same week in 2025.
- IT hours increased 5.6% compared to the previous week, strong sequential growth that is typical for the beginning of the year.
Staffing Industry Analysts’ perspective
US Staffing hours were down -2% compared to the same week a year ago, while the IT Indicator was down -1%.
The sequential, week-on-week trends roughly follow the typical post-holiday seasonal ramp we have observed over the past five years. Both Commercial and Professional staffing hours ramped up sequentially in the second week of January, following a very similar trend as the prior year. The similarity with the year ago trend is a continuation of the pattern that was visible in December, in which the 2025 Indicator values closely mirrored the 2024 Indicator values for each week in December. While volume ramped up sequentially in the second week of January, we note that Professional hours were down moderately on a year-over-year basis, mainly due to a tough comparison with the robust ramp that occurred in Professional hours in January 2025.
The outlook for temporary staffing remains clouded by factors such as slowing growth in the overall US labor market, moderately high interest rates, policy uncertainty, and uncertainty regarding the impact of AI, leading to a continued cautious approach to hiring from clients. Nevertheless, we highlight that elevated levels of uncertainty for staffing clients means a stronger value proposition for the use of a flexible or contingent workforce to help navigate fluctuations in business activity. For more insights, please see our US Economic and Labor Market Trends (November 2025), our January US Jobs Report Briefing 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.
