Private employment services support companies and workers in adapting to seasonal and cyclical changes in the economy. The sector provides innovative and reliable solutions that enable organisations, whether public or private, to manage seasonal fl uctuation in demand and adapt their workforce needs accordingly. Cyclical fl uctuations, while less predictable, are increasingly a fact of life as economies alternate between periods of positive and negative growth. Private employment services have developed as part of the solution to meet an increased volatility in labour demand and to support organisations in adapting to the impact that each cycle has on their employment levels.
However, the increased incidence of structural changes in recent years has brought a new set of challenges to economies and labour markets. Globalisation, demographic evolution, sectoral and IT shifts, unpredictability and complexity combined with new attitudes to work have resulted in economies across the world experiencing deep structural shifts. For labour markets, the consequences are severe: persistent high level of unemployment (which hits young people disproportionately hard), the need for new skills for new jobs, low occupational and geographic work mobility, a risk of segmentation of labour markets, low labour market participation rates (especially for women and older workers) and the need to reconcile diverse forms of labour relations with decent working conditions.
As leading service providers, private employment agencies are well placed to enable adaptation to these structural changes. With its international reach and specialised market knowledge, the sector facilitates adaptation to change in labour markets that are becoming increasingly complex, volatile and unpredictable.
The Boston Consulting Group/Ciett study finds that the private employment sector stands for a number of characteristics that help labour markets to remain and become more efficient, and making it a valuable employment partner for governments, companies and workers in the decades to come.