Today is the final day for Staffing Industry Analysts’ CWS Summit conference in Dallas, which brought together more than 1,100 contingent workforce managers, suppliers and others to discuss the latest trends impacting the contingent workforce.
This year’s theme is “the intersection of talent and technology”; anecdotally, direct sourcing is generating much interest.
One of the big takeaways from the conference is a view of the trends shaping the contingent workforce landscape. A panel to help wrap up the conference is set for this afternoon. However, SIA’s John Nurthen, executive director of global research, and Bryan Peña, senior VP of contingent workforce strategies outlined some of the key insights from SIA’s own research in 2018 in a panel on Tuesday.
Some of those findings:
- The median share of a client companies’ workforces that is contingent has risen to 20% in 2018 from 10% in 2009.
- The most common supplier management strategy in use today is VMS with 87% of large staffing buyers saying they use it. However, including statement-of-work contracts is the area buyers are most interested in expanding into with 46% saying they will explore doing so in two years. Currently, only 44% of contingent workforce programs include statement-of-work contracts.
- More staffing buyers had assignment limits in 2018, with 71% saying they did compared to 64% in 2015.
- 48% of staffing firms were aware of the human cloud, but not interested in pursuing it. However, 30% are considering building, acquiring or partnering to join the human cloud over the next two years. In addition, 9% currently own or have invested in such a service, and 5% are currently partnering with such a service.
- 87.4% of temporary workers are not using human cloud services,
- 58% of workers chose temporary work because they are looking for a permanent job and thought it might lead to one. And another 12% took a temporary job to supplement income while looking for a regular permanent position.
- Total staffing industry revenue to grow 4% this year, up from 3% in 2017
And just as the CWS Summit comes to a close today, the Collaboration in the Gig Economy [1] conference is also set to begin in Dallas tomorrow. It will cover the latest developments in the gig economy — from online staffing and human cloud platforms to the newest advances in technology.