Recruiting Market Report - February

Find out what we are hearing from candidates and clients and get our predictions for the future of the hiring market in the February 2026 edition of The ASP Team Market Report:

Quinn Finnigan - Recruiting Services Leader

Joss Stokke - Recruiting Services Leader

What are we hearing from candidates?
"Yes, I'm job-hugging."
Everyone should be familiar with the term "job hugging" by now. If you're not, it's the workplace trend where people, driven usually by fear of economic instability, cling to their current job rather than being open to making a move, especially turning down opportunities they would have been open to in a better job market. And no, nobody is actually saying to us "Yes, I'm job-hugging", rather we are discerning that from countless conversations and our metrics showing we're just not submitting as many highly qualified candidates as we have in prior years.

What are we hearing from clients?
"Figuring out what we need."
Last month we noted clients were being slow, steady and increasingly picky. While that hasn't changed much given no massive change in macroeconomic forces, this month's sentiment is coming from the perspective of potential clients. We are routinely introduced to talk with companies who express interest in our services to help them hire. More often than in the past number of years, once we dive into the details and learn about the hiring situation, these companies don't know exactly what they need and pause the process. There are still numerous complex external pressures that are causing them to do additional work to figure out what exactly they need to hire for, and at what level. It's not surprising that, in this interesting market, companies continue their cautious approach.

What are we feeling about the market?
"Needs revising."
In light of the newest BLS jobs report stating the loss nationwide of 92,000 jobs in February, we may need to revise our outlook on the hiring market from last month's "more of the same" where we noted the market had been in a slow but steady holding pattern for quite some time. However, we've also seen really large revisions to these numbers over the last year as noted in a recent article, so we're now left questioning the monthly job numbers. In all, the hiring market seems relatively unchanged over the past several months: necessary hiring is happening quickly, there's limited growth-based hiring and people on both sides are being cautious about making decisions. As we emerge from year-end audit and tax deadlines let's hope we can revise this to a more active market in the coming months.

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ASP Hiring Statistics
37 - Avg. days to place
$176,000 - Avg. placed controller salary
33% - Percent of diversity hires
100% - Percent of time we get interviews for our clients

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Recent Placements
FP&A Manager – Manufacturing – Tukwila
Controller – Manufacturing – Tukwila 
Staff Accountant – Construction – Tacoma

View Our Current Openings

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Hiring Smarter with The ASP Team
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