Staffing and search firms are helping shape the future of work amid years of labor market upheaval.
Today we released The State of Staffing & Search, a new report with the American Staffing Association that looks at how staffing firms are navigating a very different labor market.
The big takeaway is this: contract work is no longer a stopgap—it’s becoming a core part of how companies build their workforce. Even as overall hiring has slowed since the post‑pandemic peak, contract roles have continued to take share relative to full‑time postings.
At the same time, staffing talent is changing. Workers coming through staffing firms are becoming more specialized, more skilled, and faster adopters of AI than the broader labor market. In fact, they’re building AI literacy significantly faster, positioning staffing firms to play a central role in an AI‑driven economy.
The firms that will succeed next are the ones leaning into flexibility, investing in new skills, and treating staffing as strategic workforce infrastructure—not just transactional hiring.
If you want to understand where staffing is headed, and what it means for employers and workers alike, check out the full report: https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/economicgraph/en-us/PDF/asa-linkedIn-state-of-staffing-report-jan-2026.pdf.