The staffing industry is now truly multinational. Our survey of the world’s three largest staffing companies – Adecco, Randstad and ManpowerGroup – showed that the latter firm has the broadest geographical coverage of any staffing company with a presence in 80 countries. Smaller companies are now also looking to expand abroad and we have addressed where they might go in our paper on the most attractive staffing markets are globally.

What I was asked this week by a company looking to expand internationally was - how can we establish a presence in X, Y and Z? My answer was to point them toward the excellent resources provided by export.gov and UK Trade and Investment.  The former is a collaborative effort of 19 US Federal Agencies that offer export assistance programmes and services, managed by the US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. The latter is the UK government department that aims to help British-based companies succeed in the global economy.

The resources that are most useful to answer the specific question are, respectively, the Country Commercial Guides and the UK Doing Business reports.

Both guides provide information on establishing an office, franchising, using an agent or distributor. In addition they provide data on:

• The political and economic environment
• Trade regulations, customs and standards
• The investment climate
• Trade and project financing
• Business travel
• Contacts, market research and trade events

While neither source covers the staffing sector, we would suggest you read our country snapshots as an introduction instead. The “Labour” and “Recruiting and Retaining Staffing” sections respectively give a brief but interesting introduction to the permanent staffing market.

As an example you can find the reports for Portugal including our snapshot below.

Wherever you are going, we hope you have a profitable trip.