Hiring stalled. The work didn't.

Hiring stalled. The work didn't.

US private payrolls added 44,000 jobs in July, the weakest gain in six months.^[1] In the same stretch, US staffing hours reached new highs for the year.^[2] Both are true, and the gap between them is the story.

Three signals shaping the workforce this week.

Here's what I'm watching this week (Access all stories):

• US private payrolls added just 44,000 jobs in July, the weakest gain in six months, signaling that permanent headcount decisions remain frozen even as business activity continues.^[1]
• US staffing hours have reached new year-to-date highs, showing that the work is getting done, just not through permanent hires.^[2]
• Adecco posted its fifth straight quarter of revenue growth, up 5.6%, with explicit attribution to market share gains.^[3]

Here's what I think this means for the industry:

1. The headline number and the operational number are pointing in opposite directions. Permanent hiring is effectively stalled. Contingent and flexible workforce volume is at its highest point of the year. Enterprises are not waiting for clarity before getting work done. They are routing around it.
2. That volume is landing somewhere, and the big staffing players know it. Adecco's five consecutive quarters of growth are not an accident. They are the result of buyers defaulting to incumbent relationships when decisions feel urgent and the capacity to evaluate alternatives is low.
3. Defaulting is the expensive part. The ones who have done the structural work to diversify their supplier mix and understand their true costs are in a materially better position than those who have not. That gap does not show up in a quarter. It shows up when the next decision has to be made fast.
4. Frozen headcount is not the same as frozen demand. If your workforce plan assumes hiring stays flat, check what your contingent spend actually did over the same period. For most organizations right now, those two lines are moving apart.

Here's how Human Cloud is helping:

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- Tony

Tony Buffum Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Human Cloud. 20+ years in global HR and talent transformation. Former CHRO at FLIR Systems, VP HR at Stanley Black & Decker, VP HR Client Strategy at Upwork. Grab time with me »

PS: I'll be at the SIA CWS Summit in Dallas on September 28-29. The night of the 29th we're hosting a small dinner for contingent workforce leaders, with Dr. Kelly Monahan of the Upwork Research Institute keynoting. Twenty seats, no slides, no pitch. Here's the table »

Human Cloud Data

Companies are shopping for advisors, not vendors

Every 74 seconds, someone is looking at a solution profile on Human Cloud. Here is what they are searching to find them.

What the data shows

Advisory and consulting searches rose 150% this month. Automation rose 50%. Every broad industry bucket we track fell over the same period.

That is a shift in what companies think they are buying. When the market is this mixed, nobody wants a category to browse. They want someone who has already made the decision they are facing, in a business that looks like theirs. In the last full week, 83 distinct categories were searched on the platform. Companies are not shopping for an industry any more. They are shopping for the specific problem they need taken off their plate, and the operator who has already solved it.

Advisory Consulting	+150% this month
Automation	+50% this month
Biotechnology	Neutral
Civil Engineering	-25% this month
Technology SaaS	-33% this month
Healthcare and Life Sciences	-43% this month
Consumer Electronics	-50% this month

Percentages are this month vs last month.

Want to take action? Launch an RFP for your biggest challenges. Need a vetted marketing bench you can scale across a portfolio? There was an RFP for that. EOR coverage across five states and three countries? There was an RFP for that. Launch an RFP →