Adecco (parent of Ajilon and Special Counsel) says “temping trends” support recovery

The prospects for an accelerating global economic recovery were supported on Wednesday as Adecco, Swiss-based and the world’s largest temporary staffing group, said employment trends had been improving in recent weeks.  Adecco’s legal division includes contract attorney staffing agencies Ajilon Legal and Special Counsel, the latter of which it acquired through its acquisition of the MPS Group last year.

The group’s comments followed upbeat sentiment from Manpower (U.S.-based) and Randstad (Netherlands-based), the world’s other two dominant “temping” groups.  The three companies are seen as economic bellwethers,  their fortunes reflecting demand from big industrial and service sector clients around the world.   As a spokesman for Adecco said “in downturns, such customers first reduce contract labor, before cutting full-time workforces. Similarly, when demand rises, they take on temporary staff before starting to rehire permanent labor”.   Now that most countries have emerged from recession, employment, which lags a recovery, should follow — first with temporary placements and then with permanent hires.    Adecco suggests this process has begun in the legal markets.

But this uptick in contract attorney work is also due to the paradigm shift in the legal industry which we and other sites have well chronicled which includes a movement toward the use of temporary/project attorneys for substantive work at both law firms and corporations.   It is the reason that our job posts for substantive temporary legal work has increased dramatically.    Last month, Manpower reported improving trends in all temporary worker markets, including legal.  

But Adecco’s fate is increasingly intertwined with that of  North America, especially the U.S.   Last year the continent contributed 15 per cent of the company’s revenue and the acquisition of MPS is expected to increase that amount to almost 20 per cent.