- by New Deal democrat
Every week I report the YoY 4 week rolling average of American Staffing Association’s Index. It’s been decelerating recently, and last week was up only +0.5% YoY. On a single week basis, though, it went negative.
Because I have written several posts in the last couple of months emphasizing the leading aspect of temporary jobs in the monthly employment report, I thought I would compare the Staffing Index against it.
Here’s what I found: since the Staffing Index isn’t seasonally adjusted, you really have to compare each on a YoY basis. And while the two don’t turn positive or negative at the same time or for the same duration, they do correlate well on YoY direction; i.e., acceleration or deceleration in the YoY comparison.
The Staffing Index only began to be published in 2004. Since then, there have only been two periods when staffing turned negative YoY: the Great Recession and the 2015-16 energy patch downturn.
As the first two graphs below show, at the time of the Staffing Index lagged the monthly jobs report by half a year in 2007, and led it by one month at the end of 2009:
![](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2019/2/11/49540393-15498946891683543.jpg)
Because I have written several posts in the last couple of months emphasizing the leading aspect of temporary jobs in the monthly employment report, I thought I would compare the Staffing Index against it.
Here’s what I found: since the Staffing Index isn’t seasonally adjusted, you really have to compare each on a YoY basis. And while the two don’t turn positive or negative at the same time or for the same duration, they do correlate well on YoY direction; i.e., acceleration or deceleration in the YoY comparison.
The Staffing Index only began to be published in 2004. Since then, there have only been two periods when staffing turned negative YoY: the Great Recession and the 2015-16 energy patch downturn.
As the first two graphs below show, at the time of the Staffing Index lagged the monthly jobs report by half a year in 2007, and led it by one month at the end of 2009:
![](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2019/2/11/49540393-15498946891683543.jpg)
![](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2019/2/11/49540393-15498941576788998.png)
At the time of the energy patch downturn, the Index turned negative YoY in May 2015:
![](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2019/2/11/49540393-1549894158032563.jpg)
And continued negative until June 2017:
![](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2019/2/11/49540393-15498941589089553.jpg)
Meanwhile,monthly temp jobs number did not turn negative except most of the last 9 months of 2016 — although it started its rapid deceleration almost exactly when the Index went negative:
![](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2019/2/11/49540393-15498941577236114.png)
Note that decelation in the YoY number corresponded with the Staffing Index’s turning negative in 2015, and continued to improve until mid-2017.
Most recently, the YoY comparisons started to deteriorate in the Staffing Index in November, and have been barely positive so far this year.
![](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2019/2/11/49540393-15498941571517515.jpg)
All of which makes me think that the deceleration of temp jobs in the monthly report for the last three months, as shown in the final graph below:
![](https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2019/2/11/49540393-15498942418797104.png)
hasn’t just been noise, but - while still positive - is demonstrative of real weakness.