The most attractive markets for staffing are India and Malaysia, followed by China and Ireland, according to a report released Thursday by SIA. The report covers staffing markets in 60 countries throughout six continents.

The dramatic impact of the Covid-19 crisis on a number of markets is clear, the “Most Attractive Staffing Markets Globally 2021” report found. However, some countries were able to constrain the spread of the disease, and these stand out in the analysis.

This year’s methodology incorporates an assessment of the countries’ resilience to the Covid-19 crisis. This metric highlights the geographies that appear to have deployed appropriate responses to contain Covid as well as those that have not.

This global analysis is also broken down by region: Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific. 

"According to our calculations, the Indian staffing market was worth INR 368.7 billion (USD 5.2 billion) in 2020. This is the fourth largest staffing market in Asia, after Japan (USD 66.7 billion), China (USD 16 billion) and Australia (USD 15 billion). In 2019, before the Covid-19 outbreak, temporary staffing accounted for 86% of sales and permanent recruitment 14%," Senior Research Analyst David Papapostolou stated in the report.

The least attractive markets included in the analysis were Algeria, Nigeria, Egypt and Kuwait. The lower tier on the list contains smaller staffing markets and larger ones where staffing market growth prospects are low in the short term. Some of these economies may not have seen upsurges in coronavirus infections on their territory, but they rely on global trade and their prospects of GDP growth are tepid at best. In addition, some of these markets show the worst scores for ease of doing business and political instability.

SIA corporate members can download the full report online. It includes a web-based, interactive assessment tool that enables users to fine-tune the analysis to their business case.