In the March Pulse, there was impressive year-over-year growth across all staffing segments. Among all non-healthcare segments, February revenue growth was highest in none other than IT staffing (up a median 23% year over year). An astounding net 88% of participating IT staffing firms reported positive revenue growth in February, up from a net 75% in December.

Bill rates, a topic frequently brought up in recent earnings calls, are expected to increase over the next six months, according to a net 57% of respondents. More about bill rates can be seen in the below chart. Since early 2021, both the last three months trend and expected next six months trend in bill rate growth have been consistently high, with no indication of a decrease in rates as of yet.

Now let’s consider assignment growth. Kforce Inc. (NASDAQ: KFRC) in its fourth-quarter report, as well as many other IT staffing companies, have referred to historically strong new assignments to end 2021 and begin 2022. If you think this is short-lived, consider that in the March Pulse, a net 56% of respondents expected new orders to increase (above their already sky-high levels) over the next six months, effectively a sign that they expect this growth to continue until at least the end of 2022.

The SIA | Bullhorn Staffing Indicator for the week ended March 26 shows even more up-to-date data on an overall basis. It showed an increase in temporary staffing hours worked in professional occupations (IT, healthcare, finance, engineering, etc.) of 18% year over year. This suggests that the first-quarter growth we’re seeing — not just in IT but across staffing — is indeed expected to carry forward into the second quarter.

Back to the Pulse for a moment. In February, IT staffing participants reported a 2.50 sales difficulty (on a scale of one to five, with one being the least difficult and five being most difficult), while recruiting difficulty reached an all-time high of 3.83. In the chart below you can see that the difference between recruiting and sales difficulty has typically been rather small historically, but since January 2021 has been growing, and in February reached an all-time high of 1.33. We look at the difference between the two as a metric where greater values are roughly associated with tighter markets, and this thus corresponds with the historical talent shortage we’ve been seeing in IT.

TechServe Alliance data shows that total IT employment was actually down slightly (0.04%) in February for the first time since August 2020, which it says is an indicator of an “extraordinarily tight supply of technical talent.”

When this candidate-driven market will let up remains to be seen, but IT staffing companies are in for a good 2022 if current trends continue.

For an up-to-date view of 2022 staffing growth and trends, participate in the next Pulse at the beginning of May. Keep an eye out for the survey, or access it via our Surveys page.