RefAssured Research Report · 2026
The Most (and Least) Searched Staffing Trends for 2026
No one can predict the future, but Google search data tells you what staffing clients, candidates, and your competition are actively thinking about right now. We analyzed five years of U.S. search trends across 15 staffing industry terms. Here's what we found.
15
Search terms analyzed
5
Industry sections covered
5 yrs
Of U.S. Google Trends data
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Here's what a finding looks like
Every section shows the actual Google Trends search index over five years, annotated with key moments, real stats, and analysis of what the data means for staffing agencies. Here's one example from Section 4:
Search TermCandidate Fraud
Search Trends Overview
Exploding in real time
41%
of contingent workforce program managers reported experiencing challenges with candidate validation and fraud (SIA, 2025)
17%
of hiring managers reported encountering suspected deepfake interviews by end of 2024, up from just 3% the prior year
What this means for staffing
Candidate fraud has grown from an inconvenience to an existential crisis in staffing.
The ubiquity of generative AI has made creating a convincing fake applicant trivially easy. The threats now include AI-generated résumés that perfectly match job descriptions, real-time deepfake video filters used in interviews, proxy applicants who pass the interview and hand off the job to someone else, and synthetic personas assembled from stolen identity fragments.
Key findings
What 15 search terms reveal about staffing in 2026
A preview of the data points and analysis waiting for you in the full report.
+47%
"Staffing agencies" hit a 5-year search high
After three consecutive down years, search interest just peaked — a leading indicator that hiring intent is turning active across segments.
100
"Locum tenens" at an all-time high
Search interest just hit its highest index score in five years, and it never really corrected post-COVID the way travel nursing did. The structural demand for physician coverage isn't going away.
41%
"Candidate fraud" is now mainstream
Of staffing buyers already report active fraud challenges. The search index went from near-zero to 100 in under two years.
3×
"Remote jobs" demand never corrected
Search interest is 3× what it was in 2021, but remote listings keep shrinking. A frustrated, restless candidate pool is the result.
8 wks
"Quiet quitting": fastest rise and fall ever
Zero to index 100 in 8 weeks. Now at index 3. The cultural moment is over, and what replaced it tells a very different story about the labor market.
3 yrs
"IT staffing" just had a breakout after years of flatness
Three consecutive years of near-zero search movement, then an explosion in late 2025. Companies that paused hiring are finally getting off the bench.
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Discover where the staffing industry is headed in 2026 and beyond, with RefAssured's exclusive original trends research. Read the report today.
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