At its recent Talent Summit, PeopleScout announced the expansion of its service centers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia Pacific, plus the acquisition of TMP Holdings, a provider of employer branding and RPO services operating in the U.K. via Yocto, the RPO division of TMP Worldwide.

Already the largest RPO provider in terms of number of hires (~300k annually) and the largest RPO provider in terms of revenue in N. America, this acquisition makes PeopleScout one of the major RPO contenders in the U.K., moving from ~20^th largest in terms of revenue to ~5^th.

This acquisition expands PeopleScout’s EMEA client base and strengthens its global RPO capabilities. TMP’s London headquarters will become PeopleScout’s EMEA headquarters, and its Bristol delivery center also joins PeopleScout’s global delivery center network, which supports clients in ~70 countries. Bristol and London will continue to support TMP’s current clients.

In addition to expanding PeopleScout’s EMEA and global RPO capabilities, the acquisition adds a talent advisory offering which includes employer branding, recruitment marketing, assessment services, and talent acquisition strategy. Andrew Wilkinson, TMP CEO, will join the PeopleScout executive leadership team and report to President Taryn Owen as Group Managing Director of EMEA.

This latest acquisition continues PeopleScout’s global expansion, with Owen stating that just under half of all their clients have been involved in an acquisition. Previous significant acquisition activity on its expansion path includes:

• U.S.-based RPO and MSP provider SeatonCorp in 2014, which also expanded its presence in APAC
• RPO provider HRX in 2015 to expand its presence in Australia and New Zealand as part of the One Global PeopleScout initiative to increase its global footprint
• Aon Hewitt's RPO division in 2016, another One Global PeopleScout initiative, bringing 650 employees based in the U.S., Canada, Poland, and India
• The addition of MSP services transitioned from Staff Management|SMX, another TrueBlue company. With this addition, PeopleScout expanded its ability to provide total workforce services, with RPO and MSP services being blended into one overall service under one brand, while still offering RPO and MSP as stand-alone programs. This move enhanced its global capability (global MSP contracts account for ~19% of the market, with another 28% of the market represented by multi-region or multi-country contracts).

Putting PeopleScout’s continued geographic expansion into context, NelsonHall’s RPO market analysis shows that ~31% of RPO contracts are in two or more countries, with 16% in two or more countries in a single region, 7% in two or more regions, and 8% global (in three or more regions).

Approximately 34% of PeopleScout’s contracts encompass two or more countries, which is 3% more than the industry average. In 2018 and beyond, NelsonHall expects the proportion of single-country contracts to decrease and all other multi-country categories to increase to ~35% by 2021, and PeopleScout’s share to increase to ~40%.