This ever-changing and exciting world we know as the staffing industry plays an integral part in so many lives and businesses all over the world. Whether it be a recruiter trying to find the perfect candidate for their client, an employer looking for someone to help assist in a seasonal spike in census, a traveler looking for their next adventure, or a patient getting the care they need, the staffing industry impacts many people.
With that being said, many of us know the opportunities and advantages temporary staffing affords us but not many know how this industry was started. So with that, here are some interesting facts about how temporary staffing was first implemented and some historic milestones along the way.
- The temporary staffing industry got its start shortly after World War II, when a handful of temp agencies were started primarily in the Midwest. Two of the first were Russell Kelly Office Services in Detroit, MI and Manpower, Inc. in Milwaukee, WI.
- The first temp jobs were primarily women doing a variety of short-term office jobs. As soldiers vacated their jobs to join the war effort, business owners had a need for qualified individuals to help fill many of their office positions.
- According to locumtenems.com, travel healthcare got its first start when the Robert Wood Foundation provided a grant that was aimed to research how they could get physicians to provide care in rural locations. From that research, it was found that doctors would go to these rural areas but they wanted scheduled time off in return and from that, locum tenens travel assignments were started.
- Travel nursing got its start at Mardi Gras! According to Healthcare Traveler Magazine, a hospital in New Orleans brought in temporary nurses to meet the rise in census the hospital saw over the Mardi Gras Festival in the late 1970s. From there, other hospitals adopted the philosophy especially in the nursing shortage of the 1980s and the industry took off.
- According to staffindustry.com, the healthcare staffing market will reach a size of $15.5 billion in 2017 aided by a variety of factors including an aging population, longer life expectancy, and increased technology.
- There are over 20,000 staffing companies in the United States that place over three million workers each week in a wide variety of industries, according to the American Staffing Association.