Our first StaffingHub Brief covers the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling and what it means for client demand, Bullhorn’s GRID report drawing a hard line between AI adopters and everyone else, a labor market sending mixed signals to staffing leaders, and ManpowerGroup data showing the talent shortage has changed shape.
Key takeaways:
- 📊 Staffing hours are rebounding, but don’t pop the champagne yet. The SIA | Bullhorn Staffing Indicator rose from 71 to 74, just 1% behind the same week in 2025. Temporary help employment grew sequentially in November, December, and January. Early signs of a turning point, not a breakout.
- 🤖 The AI revenue gap is now a data point, not just a hunch. Bullhorn’s 2026 GRID report found top-performing staffing firms are four times more likely to use AI. The gap between firms investing in AI and those waiting for the market to recover is widening fast.
- ⚖️ The Supreme Court struck down IEEPA tariffs, and the staffing ripple effects are real. Lower input costs for manufacturers could free budget for workforce spending. But a replacement 10% global levy landed within hours, and uncertainty isn’t going anywhere.
- 🔍 AI skills are now the hardest to find globally. ManpowerGroup’s 2026 Talent Shortage Survey of 39,000 employers across 41 countries shows 72% report difficulty filling roles. For the first time, AI capabilities top the shortage list, overtaking engineering and IT.
- 💼 The staffing recession is probably over. The recovery isn’t rushing in. ASA research shows the industry recorded year-over-year employment growth in the latter half of 2025 for the first time since the downturn. But healthcare accounted for 74% of total private job growth, and low voluntary turnover keeps a lid on demand.
- 📈 Job gains are strengthening, quietly. ADP’s NER Pulse shows U.S. private employers added an average of 12,750 jobs per week for the four weeks ending February 7. That’s the fourth straight week of acceleration and the fastest pace since late November.
📊 Staffing hours climb back, but headwinds persist
The rebound is real. The question is whether it has legs:
- U.S. staffing hours improved across commercial and professional segments in the second week of February, with the SIA | Bullhorn Staffing Indicator rising from 71 to 74. Commercial hours posted the biggest gains, likely recovering from weather-related pullback the prior week. Hours remain below pre-holiday season levels but are seasonally appropriate. (Learn more)
- BLS estimates show temporary help employment grew sequentially in November, December, and January, a potential inflection point after a prolonged downturn. But headwinds remain: sluggish overall labor market growth, record-low voluntary turnover, policy uncertainty, and cautious client hiring all continue to suppress demand. (Learn more)
Why it matters: The industry is no longer contracting, and that’s meaningful. But “no longer contracting” and “growing” are different things. Staffing leaders watching these indicators should be using the stabilization window to invest in the capabilities (especially technology and specialization) that will determine who captures share when demand accelerates.
🤖 The AI divide is now measurable
Bullhorn’s 2026 GRID report puts numbers behind what many already suspected:
- Top-performing staffing firms are four times more likely to leverage AI, according to Bullhorn’s 16th annual GRID Industry Trends Report, which surveyed nearly 2,300 recruitment professionals globally. The report found that a majority of firms reporting more than 25% revenue growth are actively using AI. With 43% of firms expecting only modest economic improvement in 2026, the message is clear: firms investing in AI aren’t waiting for recovery. They’re building growth on their own terms. (Learn more)
- ASA members are flagging AI adoption as the single biggest force shaping staffing in 2026, but with a critical distinction: the real divide isn’t between firms that use AI and those that don’t. It’s between firms that use AI to drive higher performance and those that just automate existing tasks. As one ASA board member put it, if AI doesn’t improve outcomes or productivity, it’s “just faster noise.” Talent authentication is also emerging as a core operating capability as AI-generated resumes and interview responses make it harder to verify candidate quality. (Learn more)
Why it matters: The revenue gap between AI adopters and laggards isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s showing up in placement speed, growth rates, and recruiter productivity. Staffing leaders who haven’t built an AI implementation roadmap aren’t just behind on technology. They’re falling behind on revenue.
⚖️ Tariff relief came and went in the same news cycle
The Supreme Court ruling reshuffled trade policy. For staffing, the implications are indirect but real:
- The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to strike down IEEPA tariffs on February 20, ruling the president exceeded his authority. Hours later, a replacement 10% global levy was imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. SIA Economist Michael Schultz noted that the removal of IEEPA tariffs would reduce input costs for U.S. manufacturers, which “may in turn allow US manufacturers to reallocate resources toward workforce needs and re-engage with their staffing partners.” (Learn more)
- Tariff uncertainty had already been suppressing client hiring decisions. SIA’s Pulse survey earlier in 2025 found that 32% of staffing firms reported clients taking a “wait and see” approach because of tariffs, while 29% cited stagnation or slowdowns in orders. The Supreme Court ruling doesn’t eliminate uncertainty. It restructures it. (Learn more)
Why it matters: Lower tariffs on imported materials should ease pressure on manufacturing clients’ budgets, potentially unlocking staffing spend that’s been frozen. But the Section 122 replacement tariffs have a 150-day clock unless Congress acts, which means procurement teams and staffing partners alike are still operating in a planning vacuum. Industrial and manufacturing staffing firms should be modeling multiple scenarios, not betting on one.
🔍 The talent shortage changed shape. AI skills now top the list.
The shortage isn’t easing. It’s shifting to skills that barely existed five years ago:
- For the first time, AI skills are the hardest for employers to find globally. ManpowerGroup’s 2026 Talent Shortage Survey of 39,000 employers across 41 countries found that 72% report hiring difficulty, down modestly from 74% last year. AI model and application development (20%) and AI literacy (19%) now lead the global ranking of hardest-to-find skills, displacing traditional IT and data capabilities. (Learn more)
- Healthcare hiring continues to defy the broader cooldown. Indeed Hiring Lab data shows signing bonus offers have declined alongside wage growth and hiring activity across the labor market, but remain well above pre-pandemic norms in healthcare occupations specifically. Healthcare represented roughly 11% of U.S. employment but accounted for nearly three-quarters of all net job growth in 2025. (Learn more)
Why it matters: Staffing firms that can source and validate AI-literate talent have a pricing advantage that’s only going to grow. And healthcare staffing remains the industry’s most reliable growth engine, but the competition for qualified candidates there isn’t easing. Firms need to be asking: are we positioned in the verticals and skill categories where demand is actually concentrating?
💼 The staffing recovery: real, uneven, and selective
The downturn may be over. But what comes next won’t look like what came before:
- The staffing industry appears to have turned a corner, with year-over-year employment growth recorded in the latter half of 2025 for the first time since the downturn, according to ASA research. But the recovery is selective. Job growth is heavily concentrated in healthcare, and low voluntary turnover continues to suppress the churn that drives staffing demand. ASA notes that barring a recession, firms should expect cost pressures to persist, with total compensation costs ticking up to 3.5% growth in Q3 2025 against a pre-pandemic baseline of 2.8%. (Learn more)
- Recession fears are fading, which should support client confidence. The February 2026 NABE Economic Policy Survey found that 45% of panelists don’t expect a downturn before the second half of 2027, up from 35% in August 2025. Only 4% believe the U.S. is currently in recession, down from 17% in the prior survey. (Learn more)
- Indeed’s Q4 2025 vertical data shows a market that varies dramatically by sector. Tech job postings remain one of the weakest segments, with several categories still at least 30% below pre-pandemic levels. B2B trends leaned positive, with wage growth in most categories outpacing the broader market. Healthcare shows some signs of deceleration but remains in far better shape than the rest of the labor market. (Learn more)
Why it matters: This recovery will reward specialization and punish generalists. Healthcare and B2B services are where demand is concentrating. Tech staffing shows early signs of stabilization but hasn’t turned the corner yet. Firms that spread resources evenly across all segments will underperform those that make deliberate bets on where the growth actually is.
The StaffingHub Brief provides weekly insights for staffing agency leaders and publishes every Friday. Want to get essential staffing industry news delivered to your inbox? Sign up for our weekly and daily newsletters.
