The Event and Promo Staffing Industry loses 50% of its workforce
London, UK (Wednesday, 10th March 2021) — Liveforce has published the Event and Promo Staffing Industry Covid-19 Recovery Report as they follow the progress of the industry back to the “new normal.”
Despite the government’s roadmap announcement in February, the feedback from the events and promotional staffing industry is that there will be no return to pre-covid business levels until 2022. However, most shocking of all is the significant loss of valued event freelancers and temporary staff. Only 10% of agencies reported that they retained their temporary workforce, and this is backed up by the findings from event freelancers themselves. 50% of event profs and freelancers have had to retrain in the wake of C-19 – which means 50% have effectively left the industry as a direct result.
“Quality of staff changed due to people retraining and finding other jobs. Amount of pay may be reduced perhaps to more unskilled workforce requiring work” Agency Owner
Results from the recovery report also demonstrate that event agencies are not seeing an increase in bookings as yet – nearly 40% say they have had zero confirmed bookings since the roadmap announcement at all. Mirroring this, approximately 80% of agencies confirm they have had little to no uplift in business since the roadmap announcement.
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Freelancers looking to return to the industry are reporting that their biggest concerns are finding work and worries that the agencies they worked with before are no longer operating. What is clear here is the need for agencies to communicate with the potential bank of freelancers who have been lost from the industry. The other major concern for event freelancers is work being canceled at the last minute. An understandable source of worry, and a sentiment that supports the call from the industry for a government-backed insurance scheme specifically for events.
“Staff costs need to increase substantially. For too long brands have gotten away paying rock bottom prices and now they need to pay the real cost of having staff on demand at short notice.” Agency Owner
March 2021 Recovery Report
The recovery report is available for download here.
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About Liveforce
Launched in 2019, Liveforce is an end-to-end staffing platform built for event and promo agencies to streamline the recruitment, management and scheduling of their temporary workforce. Their innovative processes cut through unnecessary admin time, bringing direct savings to the hundreds of staffing agencies worldwide that currently rely on their platform. Newcomers Liveforce quickly established themselves as a market leader as they aim to further revolutionise the event staffing industry. For more info please visit https://liveforce.co.
