The nature of the global workforce has rapidly changed.  The idea of getting a job from one company, working their for 30 years, and then retiring is long gone.  Companies need to scale their workforce up and down in order to stay competitive and job seekers have to be more flexible and mobile as well.

This has placed a premium on the need for companies to increase their agility in staffing.  Companies need to source, screen, select and on-board the right talent at an accelerated pace.  If they take too long or fill positions with the wrong type of talent, it can directly impact their competitiveness.

According to an Intelligence Report from the American Staffing Association,

The number of people working at a company, their skill sets, their cumulative cost to the company, and their ambition and motivation all combine to create the single most important variable in the success or failure of any enterprise: the staff.  A company that can get the right people in the right positions at the right time and at
the right price has a tremendous advantage over less astute competitors.

In response to the need for speed and agility, companies are increasing their adoption of Applicant Tracking Systems even during a slow economy.

Bersin & Associates says in a recent posting that the Applicant Tracking Systems market (ATS) grew by 11% to nearly $1 Billion as of April 2011.  Reasons for the significant growth are that companies need to move quickly and they cannot keep pace if they either have no technology at all or if they have out-of-date ATS software.