How Are Employment Activities Classified in ISIC Rev. 5?

Employment activities in ISIC Rev. 5, UN Statistics Division, cover employment placement, temporary employment and other human resources provision. Placement agencies find candidates and match them with employers, earning a fee for the match. Temporary employment agencies supply workers to a client, remain the employer for administrative purposes, and supervise the employment relationship as described in the UNSD entry. Other human resources provision includes supplying staff and handling personnel functions for a client on an ongoing basis.

Who is the employer, and who is the client?

That one question sorts most of this scope. A placement agency finds a candidate, matches that person with an employer, and earns a fee when the match is made. A temporary employment agency goes further: it supplies workers to a client, stays the employer for administrative purposes, and supervises the employment relationship as the UNSD entry describes it. A human resources provider supplies staff and handles personnel functions for a client on an ongoing basis. In each case the agency’s service is the employment service itself. The nurse’s hospital work, or the warehouse work done at a logistics client’s site, is not the agency’s activity. The agency is counted for finding, supplying, or managing people, not for the work those people then do.

The scope covers:

• Employment placement and recruitment services
• Temporary employment agency activities
• Other human resources provision for clients
• Executive search and placement services where the UNSD entry includes them

Executive search earns a mention because senior appointments are sometimes assumed to sit elsewhere, in consultancy or management services. Where the UNSD entry includes them here, they belong here. The entry, not the seniority of the role or the size of the fee, decides.

What is not an employment activity?

Employing workers for the agency’s own operations is not. Every firm employs its own staff; that does not make it an employment agency. Providing training as an education service is not, even when training is offered alongside recruitment. Providing general management consultancy is not, even when a consultant advises on staffing. Operating a job website that only lists vacancies, without placing anyone, is not placement either. The website sells listings or attention, not a match. These edges matter because the labour market language is loose: firms call themselves recruiters, talent platforms, or people partners while doing quite different things. ISIC Rev. 5, UN Statistics Division, cuts through the branding by asking what the unit actually does for its client, and whether it makes the match, supplies the worker, or manages the personnel function.

Two worked cases, side by side

First, an agency recruits nurses for hospitals. It checks qualifications, arranges interviews, and earns a fee when a nurse is hired. The hospital then employs the nurse. That is placement, clean and complete. Second, an agency employs warehouse workers and assigns them to a logistics client for a season, handling pay and contracts while the client directs the day to day warehouse tasks. That is temporary employment: the agency remains the employer in administrative terms while the work happens on the client’s premises. Both cases are described in ISIC Rev. 5, UN Statistics Division, by the employment service. Note the contrast with a firm that simply runs its own warehouse with its own staff. There the employer and the operator are the same unit, and the activity is warehousing, not employment services. The same worker, in the same warehouse, can therefore sit in different statistical places depending on who employs and supplies them. That feels odd until you see the purpose: statistics need to show agency work as agency work, not dissolved into client industries.

Why do statisticians watch this corner so closely?

Placement and temporary staffing often move before permanent hiring does. When firms are unsure, they hire through agencies first; when they are confident, they hire directly. Separate figures for employment services therefore act as an early signal for the wider labour market, and they reveal how much agency work is growing relative to direct employment. Mix agency workers into client industry totals and both stories disappear: the hospital looks bigger, the logistics firm looks bigger, and the agency sector vanishes. ISIC Rev. 5, UN Statistics Division, contains 22 sections from A to V, 87 divisions, 258 groups, and 463 classes in total, which is a reminder that a small boundary choice here can shift a published aggregate for a whole labour market segment.

Which neighbours should a reader compare?

Own employment is grouped with the employer’s activity, whatever that activity is. Education sits in Section Q, so training supplied as education is not employment services. Professional consultancy sits in Section N. Web portal operation sits in Section K. Before settling, read each neighbour’s UNSD wording in full, including exclusions, and ask whether it describes the unit’s main work more precisely. If the answer points away from employment activities, follow the neighbour. Keep the wording beside the working note.

Nothing here settles a real firm’s statistical home. This is a guide to the classification only, and it cannot determine any reader’s code, principal activity, or registration. The national statistical institute or business register that holds the record should confirm any actual placement, on the unit’s full circumstances.