According to Staffing Industry Analysts’ recently released annual mergers and acquisitions recap, there were 69 US staffing-related M&A deals in 2016, down from 92 in 2015 and well below the record number of deals set in 2007.

Fig a. North American Staffing M&A Transactions Announced By Year, 2006-2016

Source: Staffing Industry Analysts

The healthcare staffing segment was the second-most targeted acquisition segment, lagging only IT in number of deals. The chart below shows the percent of total US staffing acquisition activity based on the primary staffing segment of the acquired firm. As can be seen, healthcare staffing firms accounted for 19% of all North American staffing acquisition activity in 2016 (13 out of 69). Unlike 2015, when some firms made multiple acquisitions, no firm made more than one healthcare staffing acquisition in 2016.

North America Staffing M&A Transactions By Target Segment, 2016

Source: Staffing Industry Analysts

Beyond the 69 acquisitions of staffing firms, the report covers 26 acquisitions within North America of “staffing-related” companies, such as job boards, vendor management systems and recruitment process outsourcing providers. We also report inter-regional transactions, involving one firm based in North America and a counterparty based in a different region. There were 15 such acquisitions of staffing firms in 2016, and an additional 12 inter-regional acquisitions of “staffing-related” businesses.

Corporate members can download the full report here.