According to the latest Recruitment Industry Status Report (RISR) published today by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), the recruitment and staffing industry contributed £42.9bn of direct Gross Value Added (GVA) to the UK economy last year.

This marked a 21.7% increase on 2020 and a rise on pre-pandemic levels.

The findings showed:

• The sector and related industries employed over 200,000 people in more than 30,000 businesses in 2021, 6.5% higher than the previous year.
• £36.4bn was achieved through temporary/contract placement activity, up from the £32.7bn in the previous year, with 22.4m placements made.
• £6.5bn was achieved through permanent placement activity, up from £3.2bn in 2020, with 547,692 placements made.
• 69% of income came solely from UK-based placements.
• 30,005 enterprises operated across the UK recruitment industry at the start of 2022, an increase of 1.9% on the number at the start of 2021.
• 201,154 staff were employed by the broader recruitment industry in 2021, up 6.5% on the previous year.

The report said 79.5% of the recruitment enterprises were micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees, with 82% having less than £1m in turnover. In contrast, 180 firms, or 1.6% of the total, have turnover of over £50m, with 470 businesses employing 250-plus employees.

A drop in the total number of temporary employment agencies from 2021 to 2022 was driven by a reduction in the number of businesses with more than £100k in turnover, the report said. For both temporary and permanent staffing agencies, there were increases in the number of businesses with a turnover less than £50k.

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