Employment services, 2025

Released: 2026-10-19

Employment services industry adapts to softer labour demand in 2025

In 2025, operating revenues in the employment services industry group fell 1.3% to $23.9 billion. This was the second consecutive period in which revenues declined in the industry group, reflecting continued softness in labour market conditions, driven by lower job vacancy rates and a continued deceleration in population growth through 2024 and 2025. This industry group includes employment placement agencies and executive search services, temporary help services and professional employer organizations.

Declining revenues were concentrated in Quebec, where operating revenues fell $538.0 million (-12.8%) from 2024 to 2025. Lower job vacancy levels, coupled with structural changes affecting health care staffing in the province, likely contributed to weaker demand for staffing and recruitment services. At the national level, growth in Ontario (+1.7%), Alberta (+2.9%) and Saskatchewan (+20.6%) partly offset this loss.

Operating expenses in the industry group declined at a slower rate than operating revenues, falling 0.8% to $23.0 billion in 2025. As a result, the operating profit margin narrowed further to 3.8% in 2025, compared with 4.3% in 2024. As in previous years, the largest proportions of expenditures in 2025 were labour related, led by salaries, wages, commissions and benefits (53.7%) and subcontracts (32.7%).

Ontario (55.8%) remained the largest contributor to operating revenue in the industry group in 2025, followed by Quebec (15.4%), Alberta (14.6%) and British Columbia (10.8%). The order of this provincial distribution of revenue has remained unchanged since 2020.

Sales to businesses represented 81.7% of total sales in 2025, climbing from 79.9% in 2024. Conversely, the share of sales to the public sector fell for the second year in a row, declining from 14.2% a year earlier to 12.0% in 2025. International sales (4.8%) and sales to individuals (1.4%) made up the smallest shares of total sales.

Temporary staffing services continued to represent the largest portion of total sales, though their share declined slightly from 47.9% in 2024 to 47.7% in 2025. Permanent placements and contract staffing services accounted for 42.4% of sales in 2025, while other services made up the remaining 9.9%.

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