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Contract worker staffing firms are building AI literacy faster than the rest of the labor market, according to new analysis from the American Staffing Association and LinkedIn.
Staffing firms are adding AI skills more than 46% faster than the wider workforce, says the association’s 2026 State of Staffing and Search report.
Employers are increasingly prioritizing flexibility, cost control, and AI, reshaping how talent is sourced, placed, and retained.
The report is based on insights from over 200 million US LinkedIn members and 500,000 professionals who have had work engagements through staffing and search companies.
Contract roles have evolved from a worker lifestyle preference to a necessity for both employers and job seekers. Across all industries, employers are increasingly integrating contract work into their workforce models.
While total job postings have dipped from their 2022 peak, LinkedIn data shows a clear rise in contract roles. Between June 2022 and June 2023, the share of contract postings jumped 24%, followed by further increases of 10% and 7% in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
The dip in job postings across all categories corresponds to a broader slowdown in labor churn, and the relative outperformance of contract job postings compared to full-time and part-time opportunities suggests a preference among employers for that kind of arrangement.
Companies are increasingly relying on contract labor to control costs and avoid long-term personnel commitments, while full-time opportunities become scarcer, reshaping employment realities across industries.
Employers shift towards adaptable labor models
Post-pandemic LinkedIn data reveals a sizable increase in job hoppers who remain in the same industry and move from one contract role to another.
Considering that contract terms are growing, it points to a strategic shift in how companies choose to structure their workforce. Rather than utilizing casual workers as short-term stopgaps, a larger supply of contract workers is becoming integral to labor models across industries, allowing employers to manage costs while maintaining operational flexibility.
This trend toward contract work could signal a broader evolution of traditional employment norms, with it playing a more central role in long-term workforce planning, especially during times of uncertainty and elevated labor costs.
During the first half of the Great Reshuffle (2021–2022), many employers expanded headcounts aggressively, adding both permanent and contract workers. In the second half (2022–2023), rising labor costs pushed employers to favor contract and part-time roles over full-time ones. As costs surged in late 2023 and through 2024, demand for staffing services declined, and employers leaned more heavily on their regular workforce.
Employers remain concerned about elevated labor costs due to rising inflation, prolonged higher interest rates, reduced demand owing to changes in trade policy, and immigration. Structural changes within the labor market, such as the rise of artificial intelligence, have prompted employers to hold off on all personnel decisions except when facing acute labor shortages.
Staffing talent is becoming more specialized and diversified
The report reveals significant shifts in staffing talent roles since 2022. In 2025, Construction and Healthcare were driving gains in staffing roles owing to demand for hands-on roles in sectors facing labor shortages. Unlike previous decades, where contract work was considered generalized or supportive in nature, sectors now need a higher degree of specialization and technicality.
Data shows a steady shift in job functions among workers following their initial engagement with a staffing and recruiting firm, making a move away from process-centric tasks such as accounting, IT, and quality assurance and towards people-centric tasks like consulting, project management, and social services.
Technological advancements are set to automate routine tasks in process-centric roles such as accounting and IT, reducing demand while elevating the need for strategic, adaptable talent.
Between 2023 and 2025, staffing professionals consistently added AI Literacy skills at a higher rate than overall members (40% more in 2023, rising to 46% by 2025), suggesting that staffing talent is actively developing foundational AI capabilities to stay competitive and meet evolving client needs.
Contract workers added AI Engineering skills 21% less often than overall talent in 2023. But by 2025 that gap had reversed, with staffing talent adding those more technical skills 7% more often than LinkedIn members at large.
Across all LinkedIn members who added a new position during that period, some 22% added fully remote roles, but among those which previously listed a role within the staffing and recruiting industry that figure rose to 30%. It suggests that companies that employ temporary workers are slightly more likely to be hybrid or remote.
Demographics with known requirements or preferences for variability are more attracted to contract jobs which offer that in terms of both time and commitment, and the flexibility afforded by contract work likely enables workers to pursue different opportunities that are conducive to their income goals.
