A lesson from a repairman that every hiring manager should understand. A few years ago, I had a stove break down and needed it repaired quickly. Like many people, I'm a DIY guy. My first instinct is usually to grab a toolbox, watch a few videos, and figure it out. But this time, I called a repairman. He showed up, looked at the problem, spent about 15 minutes making the repair, and the stove was working again. As I was pulling out the credit card, I jokingly said, "That seeme

Low skilled staffing agencies should favor states with higher taxable wage bases and lower SUTA rates because turnover, not wage ceilings, is what drives unemployment tax costs. Most staffing owners instinctively prefer a lower wage base because it sounds cheaper on paper. But in the low skilled staffing world, many employees never stay long enough to hit the cap anyway. Warehouse workers, general laborers, and entry level industrial employees often cycle in and out before ea

• Nonfarm payrolls increased by 172,000 in May, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, showing continued labor market resilience despite economic uncertainty. • Temporary help employment rose for the fourth consecutive month, a potentially important leading indicator that businesses may be slowly rebuilding hiring pipelines after a cautious start to 2026. • The latest JOLTS report showed job openings jumped to 7.62 million in April while layoffs remained historicall

One of my favorite lines from music comes from The Beatles' song Hey Jude: "Take a sad song and make it better." That's great advice not only for life, but for business as well. Baseball teaches us a lot about life. If you walk up to the plate convinced you're going to strike out, you've already put yourself at a disadvantage. The best hitters step into the batter's box believing they can make solid contact. Mindset matters. Recently, my mom went through a serious health scar

Key Takeaway's Total nonfarm payrolls rose by 115,000, beating expectations, with strongest gains in health care, transportation and warehousing, and retail trade. Federal government employment continued contracting, down another 9,000 jobs in April and nearly 350,000 below its October 2024 peak. Hires: Increased to 5.6 million, led by gains in transportation, warehousing, and professional services. The April 2026 Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistic

Skilled trade jobs are experiencing a real resurgence across the United States. Electricians, welders, HVAC technicians, and plumbers are in high demand again. To speak plainly: this ain’t just growth, there’s an actual shortage. For years, the dominant narrative pushed four-year college degrees as the primary path to success. At the same time, vocational training and apprenticeships declined. The result is a widening skills gap. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statist

Key Highlights: Healthcare, construction, and rebound-sensitive industries driving gains The JOLTS report shows that hiring, layoffs, quits continue to normalize Wage growth was probably a little stronger than expected The latest read from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a labor market that delivered job growth. Nonfarm payrolls rose by roughly 178k, the strongest gain in over a year, while unemployment edged down to 4.3%, partially due to 369,000 leaving the workforce.

Maintaining price integrity in a staffing agency isn’t about being the cheapest - it’s about being honest and aligned with the value you actually deliver. Let’s start with a simple truth: mark-ups matter. In staffing, your bill rate is built on top of the pay rate, taxes, insurance, and overhead. Once those hard costs are covered, even a small increase in bill rate flows almost entirely to the bottom line. Even a 10 cent per hour increase flows right to profit. That’s why dis

Hiring weakened, with notable declines in healthcare (partly strike-related), information, and government According to the BLS, the labor market lost jobs and ADP reported a net gain . Is this a one-month blip or a sign of a trend. The labor market seems to be in a “low hire, low fire” mode where companies aren’t aggressively hiring, but they’re also not broadly laying people off. Payrolls: −92,000 (a surprise contraction) Unemployment rate: 4.4% (slightly up from 4.3%)

I used to think being productive meant juggling five things at once: multiple tabs open, phone buzzing, Slack notifications popping, spreadsheet on one screen, LinkedIn on the other. It felt productive. But neuroscience says something different: the brain can’t actually focus on two cognitive tasks at the same time. What we call multitasking is really task switching : rapidly jumping back and forth between activities. And every switch comes with a cost. According to research

Closely held businesses are the backbone of our industry. I have seen husband and wife teams, two sisters, best friends, even parents and adult children build remarkable staffing firms from a spare bedroom and a shared vision. There is something powerful about trust at that level. You know each other’s strengths and work ethic. You are all in. But here is the truth. Love and loyalty are not a business plan. If you are going to run a staffing company with family, the first con

"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” – Wayne Gretzky In the dynamic landscape of the 2026 job market, the above quote by “The Great One” continues to serve as a guiding principle for predicting where demand for contract staffing will rise most sharply. This is not your parents talent market. Industries are evolving at record speed, and technology remains the driving force behind transformation. The surge in demand for professionals with expertise

You look at the latest January 2026 jobs report , and this is a labor market that is growing, albeit in little slower than we would like. The U.S. added roughly 130,000 jobs , beating expectations, and the unemployment rate edged down to around 4.3% . At a time when everyone’s been bracing for slowdown headlines, the economy is still generating jobs. This is the kind of backdrop policymakers want. And here’s what stands out: the gains weren’t narrow. Health care, social assi

When a prospect goes quiet after real conversations, that is not a pipeline problem. It is a human moment. You earned attention. You did not lose it by accident. And that is exactly why a break up message works when used with intent. Here is the idea. Ghosting usually means one of three things. · Priorities shifted. · Internal politics showed up. · Or the prospect does not want to say no. Silence is the easiest exit. Your job is not to chase. Your job is to

The Highlights: · Declining Job Openings: Job openings dropped to 7.1 million—the lowest level since September 2024. · Healthcare and Leisure and Hospitality led the way in terms of jobs gains in December. · For December 2025, the American Staffing Association (ASA) reported continued, modest, growth in temporary and contract staffing, with their Staffing Index showing a 4.2% year-over-year increase for the month. The December 2025 jobs report indicated a co

📊 November 2025 Employment Situation Report (BLS) · Employers added 64,000 jobs, beating modest forecasts. · Job losses in October were due to federal workers (-162,000) who took a severance package. · Job gains were concentrated in healthcare and construction 📈 October 2025 JOLTS Report · The October 2025 JOLTS report, released December 9, showed a slight rise in job openings to 7.67 million. · Hires and separations relatively stable, but not

Contract staffing remains below its pre-2022 levels, but signs of stabilization are emerging. According to the American Staffing Association (ASA), U.S. staffing firms employed roughly 2.2 million temporary and contract workers per week in Q4 2024, up 37,000 from Q3. American Staffing Association+1 . While employment dipped to just under 2.0 million per week in Q1 2025, a seasonal decline of about 9% from Q4, the year-over-year drop narrowed compared with prior quarters. Ho

In the absence of the BLS Employment Situation report, I gathered data from some other sources in an effort to shine some light on the current state of the US Employment market. Generally, The U.S. labor market is cooling, though not collapsing by any measure. What the numbers tell us: According to the ADP Research Institute report, private-sector employment rose by +42,000 jobs in October. But that headline masks a familiar pattern: the gains were concentrated in a few indus

Every staffing company knows that margins are tight and every dollar counts. But there’s a hidden “bonus” that shows up every year when your employees hit their SUTA (State Unemployment Tax Act) limits. It’s one of those behind-the-scenes moments that quietly boosts your bottom line. Once employees reach their annual wage cap for SUTA, the employer’s tax liability for those workers stops. In other words, the staffing company keeps paying the same bill rates, but payroll cost

If you’ve spent any time in staffing, you know the itch. That feeling that says, I could do this myself. For a lot of people inside agencies, especially those who’ve built solid books of business, loyal clients, and strong candidate relationships, that itch eventually becomes too hard to ignore. Over the years, I’ve seen four main reasons why good recruiters and sales reps leave the comfort of a staffing firm to hang their own shingle. 1. The Pay Cut Reality Let’s be honest