Market Overview

The total RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) market size (total of three market categories) in FY2021 was valued at 62,800 million yen, up by 15.0% from the previous fiscal year. In this research, the total RPO market refers to the total of the following three markets: 1) recruitment outsourcing, 2) recruitment management system, and 3) recruitment-related assessment. Although the market size calculated was a reference value, as some market sizes overlapped, the sale performance for all the three markets overwhelmed the previous-year results, as the recruitment activities rapidly recovered in FY2021, in which companies were able to escape from negative influence of the corona crisis, because the economic activities resumed with remote working well organized and new working styles well established.

Noteworthy Topics

Difficulty in Securing Human Resources Generating Higher Momentum for RPO

As the employment population on a downward tendency, securing of young or talented personnel has been more difficult year by year. At the same time, the recruitment processes have become complicated, increasing the time and labor to spend for, which is stimulating the use of RPO.

Despite the recruitment knowledge accumulated over the years at each company, such knowledge has started failing to contribute in successful recruitment in the situation of continuous labor shortage. This has brought about many companies to outsource even the recruitment planning and requisite definition of the personnel wanted, both of which have been the very core of the companies’ recruitment processes and had been done in-house. In addition, such a trend has increased the number of companies placing importance on recruitment in their management theme and proactively investing in it as their business strategy, which is increasing the momentum to utilize the specialty businesses that have the recruitment knowhow.

In such an environment, the demand for the services to solve the recruitment challenges at clients, i.e. the demand for RPO solutions to optimize the recruitment workflows and solve the problems, is expanding steadily, which is expected to be the growth driver for the RPO market expansion.

Future Outlook

In the RPO market, while the total number of new graduates decreasing, causing the recruitment of new graduates to shrink, the opportunity of mid-career recruitment is increasing and has enough room to explore the market, as people are trying to move away from lifetime employment. Because of the  increasing momentum for job changes based on people's own career designing, and the national policy encouraging inflow of human resources into growth business, the demand for recruitment services is expanding steadily, which is projected for the entire RPO market size (total of three markets) in FY2022 to rise by 12.4% on YoY to 70,600 million yen.

All the markets that comprise the entire RPO market are expected to grow during FY2022, as the recruitment outsourcing (RPO +MSP) market is projected to grow by 13.3%, the recruitment management system by 20.8 %, and the recruitment-related assessment market by 6.2% all from the previous fiscal year.

Research Outline