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On June 2, 2026, major news broke in the staffing industry. The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) conducted on-site inspections of five major staffing agencies on suspicion of a "price cartel." This is the first time in history that staffing agencies have faced such an inspection.
First, I should mention that I am an active sales representative at a certain staffing agency. In other words, I am an insider in the same industry as the five companies under investigation, negotiating rates with client companies and facing temporary staff every day.
Because of this, I want to explain things as honestly and accurately as possible, including parts that are hard to understand from the outside. I am not looking to defend the industry, nor am I looking to bash it. I will organize the facts and structures flatly.
This article covers the following three points:
▶ What a cartel is and why it is a problem
▶ Specifically what is happening now and the current status
▶ The profit structure of staffing agencies
I wrote this so that temporary workers, client companies, and those unfamiliar with the industry can read it to the end. It is a bit long, but please bear with me.
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■■■ Chapter 1: What is a "Cartel" anyway?
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◆ Competition keeps prices appropriate
First, the basic premise.
Prices for goods and services in the world are basically kept at appropriate levels through "competition."
For example, if there is only one ramen shop in town, that shop can set aggressive prices. Even at 2,000 yen a bowl, customers have no choice but to pay if there are no other options. But what if a 700 yen ramen shop opens across the street? Customers will flock there. So the first shop is forced to lower its prices.
This is "competition." Because there are rivals, companies cannot set "excessively high prices." Consumers can choose good things at low prices.
This mechanism is the foundation for keeping the entire economy healthy. In Japan, the "Antimonopoly Act" sets rules to protect this fair competition.
◆ Cartel = A "secret agreement" between rivals
However, what happens if rivals secretly join forces?
"Let's stop the price war. Let's all align and set the price at 1,500 yen."
If all the ramen shops in town agree to this, customers have nowhere to run. Since every shop is 1,500 yen, they cannot choose a cheaper one. As a result, prices that should have dropped due to competition are maintained at an unfairly high level.
This is a 【Cartel】.
A cartel refers to the act of rival companies, who should be competing, coordinating and agreeing on prices, production volumes, or sales regions. Those regarding prices are called "price cartels."
The Antimonopoly Act explicitly prohibits this as an "unreasonable restraint of trade." This is because a cartel is an act of "pretending to compete while actually abandoning competition." From the perspective of clients and consumers, it looks like there are choices, but in reality, prices are fixed behind the scenes. It is a highly problematic act.
◆ Why cartels are treated "especially seriously"
Cartels are treated particularly seriously among Antimonopoly Act violations for three main reasons.
First, the impact is widespread. While one company's misconduct has limited impact, if major industry players band together to raise prices, everyone using those products or services is affected. The entire market could stay high.
Second, they are difficult to detect. Cartels are agreements made in closed rooms. On the surface, it looks like each company is deciding prices independently. Therefore, it is hard for outsiders to notice, and they are often triggered by whistleblowers or investigations like this one.
Third, they undermine trust in the market itself. If the premise of "competition" collapses, the foundation of the market economy shakes. That is why competition authorities in every country treat cartels as a top enforcement priority.
◆ And the biggest mystery: Why was it "exposed"?
As someone in the industry, there is one point that really bugs me.
A cartel is an act that is "over once it's known to the outside." Representatives of each company surely know that if it is discovered, the company will suffer immense damage. Therefore, agreements are usually made in closed rooms without leaving traces.
Despite this, it came to light this time. This is quite mysterious.
The routes through which cartels are exposed are limited. Typical cases include one of the involved companies self-reporting to the authorities (the so-called Leniency system). Or, whistleblowing by internal parties, information from former employees, or consultations from clients. Why and through which route did an agreement that should never have been leaked reach the authorities? We don't know at this point, but it may become clear during the investigation. "Why was something that shouldn't have been caught, caught?"—personally, this is what I'm most curious about.
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■■■ Chapter 2: What is happening now?
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◆ The targets are the "industry's top group"
According to reports, the five major staffing agencies the JFTC inspected are as follows (all based in Tokyo):
・Persol Tempstaff
・Staff Service
・Recruit Staffing
・Adecco
・ManpowerGroup
According to research firm data, Persol, Staff Service, and Recruit occupy the 1st to 3rd spots in industry market share. The top group at the very center of the industry has been targeted for inspection all at once.
◆ Suspected collusion on "General Administrative" staffing rates
This is an important point to understand the case.
According to reports, executives of the five companies are suspected of forming a cartel around winter 2022 to discuss staffing rates for "general administrative" roles for April 2023 onwards, agreeing to raise them by just under 100 yen per hour.
To organize the structure:
・The target is the staffing rate for a specific job type: "general administrative"
・The timing was an agreement around winter 2022, with increases from fiscal 2023
・The content is the suspicion of aligning nationwide to raise rates by almost the same amount
Staffing rates are decided through individual contracts between the staffing agency and the client company, and the amounts are usually not public. Each company sets amounts by region and job type and negotiates regularly with clients. The core of the suspicion is that they coordinated to raise the "prices that each company should have decided independently."
Please do not misunderstand: these five companies are not agencies specializing only in administrative work. They are comprehensive human resource service companies handling a wide range of roles including IT, technical, and manufacturing. The issue here is the suspicion of collusion regarding the rates for "general administrative" roles within those services.
◆ Why it is seen as "piggybacking on wage hikes"
The JFTC is not questioning the act of raising rates itself. It is the "content" of the price hike.
In recent years, against the backdrop of labor shortages and high prices, there has been a global trend of wage increases. Staffing rates have also risen along with this trend. According to reports, the average staffing rate (8-hour conversion) has risen from about 23,000 yen in fiscal 2018 to the 26,000 yen range in fiscal 2024.
The ideal scenario here is that "the portion of the increased staffing rate is reflected in the wages (hourly pay) of the temporary workers." If rates go up, the worker's share also increases. Then no one is troubled.
However, the JFTC suspects that the five companies may have increased their "margin" ratio—the equivalent of their profit margin—along with the rate revisions. In other words—
"They raised the staffing rates. But that increase was not sufficiently passed on to wage hikes for temporary workers and was instead used to increase the staffing companies' take (margin)."
This is the working theory.
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■■■ Chapter 3: Impact of this case on various parties
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This case has completely different meanings depending on your position. I will organize who is affected and how from three perspectives.
◆ ① Impact on temporary workers: Possibility that wage hikes were not reflected
As an active sales rep, I want to explain this part carefully.
On the front lines, we sales reps sometimes negotiate with client companies, saying, "We want to raise the hourly wage for the temporary staff, so please increase the staffing rate." In an era of rising prices and labor shortages, we negotiate rates with the desire to improve the treatment of those working for us even a little bit.
Originally, the increase obtained through these negotiations should be returned to the temporary staff's hourly wage. "I negotiated with the client to improve your treatment" is a phrase we actually use on-site.
If, as suspected in this case, they raised prices under the pretext of wage hikes but that portion was not returned to the staff and instead went into the staffing company's pocket (margin)—this is, frankly, 【a completely problematic act】. It means they were actually increasing the company's take while using the improvement of worker treatment as a justification.
To emphasize, this is currently a "suspicion" under investigation. Whether it is true will be revealed by the investigation. However, if it was actually happening, it is an act that betrays the trust of temporary staff, and there is no way to defend it. As an industry insider, I will state that clearly without sugarcoating it.
◆ ② Impact on client companies: Raising unit prices as told, and in the future...
Let's look at the perspective of the companies using staffing services.
If the cartel is a fact, client companies were placed in a situation where "every company raises rates the same way," and they may have accepted unit price increases just as they were told. Originally, there should have been room for negotiation by comparing with other companies, but because everyone was aligned, their choices were taken away.
And here is the worrying part. If an atmosphere of "staffing rate increases = something to be wary of" spreads due to this incident, client companies may become cautious about raising rates in the future.
At first glance, this seems good for the user companies. However, what lies ahead is—if clients stop raising rates, staffing companies will find it harder to secure funds to raise hourly wages, and as a result, returns to temporary staff will become even harder to progress. If price hikes are demonized too much, the burden may eventually fall on the workers. This is a structural point we need to watch carefully.
◆ ③ Impact on society: Possibility of fueling inflation
Finally, the impact on society as a whole.
Staffing rates are a cost for user companies. If that cost was unfairly inflated, companies pass that portion onto the prices of their products and services. In other words, the rise in rates due to the cartel may have worked in a direction that pushed up prices in the world.
If it was a factor in fueling inflation while prices are already rising, the impact is not limited to the staffing industry. This is a story that concerns each and every one of our lives.
◆ What is the current status?
What should be noted at this point (June 2026) is that this is strictly at the "suspicion stage."
An on-site inspection is just the entrance to an investigation. The JFTC will now analyze the materials received from each company, proceed with interviews with involved parties, and enter a full-scale clarification of the facts. Whether a cartel is ultimately certified depends on the future investigation.
In response to reports, some companies like Tempstaff are said to have replied that they will "fully cooperate with the JFTC investigation."
Here, I want to tell one realistic thing to those working as temporary staff and the employees of staffing companies working on the front lines.
Even if you inquire with the sales representatives on the ground about this matter, you probably won't get any useful information. The suspicion of collusion is a matter at the executive level; the sales reps and coordinators handling daily operations are not involved in such agreements and are not in a position to know. Personally, as a sales rep on the ground, I honestly first learned about it through the news. It is wise to wait for official announcements from each company or the progress of the investigation for accurate information.
◆ Something that personally bugs me: The absence of Pasona's name
From here on, it's my personal question as someone in the industry.
Looking at the lineup of these five companies, what I found a bit surprising was that the name of Pasona Group was not there.
Pasona is one of the major players that cannot be ignored when talking about this industry. They have a long history and a large presence in administrative staffing as well. If there really was a movement among major industry players to align rates for "general administrative" work, it feels a bit strange intuitively that a major player of Pasona's class was not involved.
Of course, this is just my personal impression. There could be various reasons for not being a target of inspection, such as not being involved or not being part of the framework of the agreement in question. We should simply accept the fact that their name did not appear at the time of this report. I'm just adding this as a "point that suddenly bugged me as an industry insider."
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■■■ Chapter 4: Dissecting the staffing company business model and profit structure
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This is the core of this article. Why is "price" so important for staffing companies? The answer becomes clear if you look at the business model and profit structure.
◆ There are only two ways for a staffing company to increase sales
First, let's grasp the root of the business model.
There are only two ways for a staffing company to grow sales:
【① Increase the number of contract positions】
Send more temporary staff to more companies. If the number of active contract positions increases, sales will accumulate accordingly.
【② Raise the unit price (staffing rate)】
Raise the staffing rate per case. Even with the same number of people, if the unit price goes up, sales increase.
Sales in the staffing business are, in extreme terms, determined by "Number of contract positions × Unit price." So if you want to grow sales, you end up either increasing the number of positions or raising the unit price (or both).
◆ Staffing has a structure that easily falls into price competition
Here, I want to go one step deeper.
Of course, choosing a staffing company isn't all about price. There are originally various factors for differentiation—support systems, quality of human resources, speed of response, and reliability of compliance.
However, as a matter of reality, it is also true that many tasks handled in staffing are monotonous or routine. Especially in job types like general administrative work, there isn't much difference in the content of the work regardless of which company the person comes from. Then, the criteria for a client company to choose an agency inevitably leans toward "price." It becomes, "If a similar person is coming, cheaper is better."
In other words, the staffing industry inherently has a structure where differentiation is difficult and it easily falls into price competition. If price competition progresses, profits are increasingly squeezed, and it becomes a high-volume, low-margin business.
This structural circumstance of "wasting away in price competition if left alone" is a background that cannot be overlooked when considering the motivation for this case.
◆ Organizing "Margin" and "Salary"
Let's organize the flow of money in staffing by the characters involved.
・Client company ... The company that wants labor. Pays the "staffing rate" to the staffing agency.
・Staffing agency (Dispatching source) ... Recruits and employs people and sends them to the client. Receives the rate.
・Temporary staff ... The person who actually works. Receives "salary" from the staffing agency.
For example, suppose a temporary staff member is working for an hourly wage of 1,900 yen. At this time, the client company is paying the staffing agency approximately 3,000 yen per hour.
This difference between the "amount the client pays" and the "amount the staff receives" is the staffing company's take, called the "margin."
And the ratio of the margin to the total staffing rate is called the "margin rate." The industry average is said to be roughly around 30%.
◆ A "30% margin" is not a rip-off
Many people get stuck here. "Are they taking a 30% cut?"
In fact, on SNS and elsewhere, I often see voices saying, "Staffing companies are making too much money from the middleman cut." You are dispatched at 3,000 yen an hour, but your take-home is 1,900 yen. The staffing company takes the 1,100 yen difference—hearing this, it's no wonder people feel exploited.
But there is a big misunderstanding here. 【"Margin rate" and "Profit rate" are completely different things.】
◆ Breaking down the contents of the margin
Based on survey data from the Japan Staffing Services Association, let's look at the breakdown for a staffing rate of 100. It roughly looks like this:
・Salary to temporary staff ... Approx. 70%
・Social insurance premiums (company share) ... Approx. 10.9%
・Paid leave costs ... Approx. 4.2%
・Operating expenses (personnel costs for sales reps and coordinators, office rent, recruitment advertising costs, education and training costs, etc.) ... Approx. 13.7%
・Staffing company's operating profit ... Approx. 1.2%
In other words, most of the "30%" seen as the margin is the cost used for the temporary staff.
Social insurance premiums are something a company would normally bear if they hired an employee. The staffing company pays that on their behalf. The same goes for paid leave costs. Furthermore, advertising costs for recruitment, personnel costs for coordinators who conduct interviews, costs for operating consultation desks, costs for skill-up training... all of these are paid out of the margin.
And after subtracting all of those, the "operating profit" that finally remains is only about 1.2%.
◆ The thinness of a 1.2% profit margin
Please look at this "1.2%" figure again.
If there were 1 million yen worth of staffing rates, the profit finally remaining in the staffing company's hands is only 12,000 yen.
Compared to other industries, this thinness stands out. Depending on the industry, the average operating profit margin for Japanese companies is several percent to around 10%. In contrast, the staffing industry is 1.2%. It is literally a "low-margin" business.
Why is it so thin? The reason is simple: in the staffing industry, "people" are almost all of the cost. 70% of the rate disappears into salaries, and after paying insurance and expenses, almost nothing remains. Combined with the "structure that easily falls into price competition" mentioned earlier, it can be said that this is an industry destined to be high-volume and low-margin.
◆ This structure explains the "motivation" for this case
If you have read this far, you should be able to see the background of why the suspicion of a cartel arose.
Having a profit margin of only 1.2% and easily falling into price competition is a very painful combination for a staffing company. The paths to increasing profit are the two choices of "increasing the number of contract positions or raising the unit price," but in an era of labor shortages, you cannot increase the number of positions infinitely. This is because the number of workers is limited.
That leaves "raising the unit price." However, this is also not easy in a competitive market. If only your company raises rates, client companies will switch to other, cheaper companies.
—What if, here, "if other companies also raise prices the same way, customers won't run away"?
This is the temptation of a cartel. If all rivals align and raise rates, client companies have nowhere to run. They can raise unit prices without worrying about price competition. Moreover, if it's at a timing when there is a social tailwind for wage hikes, the explanation that "the whole world is rising" also holds up.
The JFTC is questioning exactly this scenario. The thinness of the 1.2% profit margin and the structure that easily falls into price competition—these two were the soil for the motivation to avoid competition and raise unit prices. This is the working theory.
Again, this is just a suspicion at this point. However, knowing the structure makes the background of "why it happened" look real.
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■■■ Chapter 5: What will this case change?
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Finally, I will look ahead to the impact this case could have on the industry, including my perspective as an active sales rep. This is not a confirmed fact but a prediction derived from the structure, and it includes my wishes as an industry person.
◆ The inherent discomfort of "increasing staffing"
I will write honestly.
The direction of "increasing the number of contract positions = increasing staffing (non-regular employment)" is by no means a good one in terms of social perception. It would be a lie to say that I don't feel uneasy on the ground about sales that consist of increasing unstable non-regular work.
That is why my frank wish as a sales rep is that this case becomes an opportunity for even a slight increase in transitions from staffing to direct employment. I hope that those who have gained experience through staffing will lead to stable direct employment beyond that. I want to see more of that healthy cycle.
However, this is an important supplement. I do not want to deny the way of working called staffing itself. There are a certain number of people who deliberately choose the flexible way of working called staffing, such as those who want to work while balancing nursing care or childcare, or those who want flexibility in work location and time. While firmly leaving staffing as such an option, I believe the direction to aim for is the coexistence where those who "actually want to work stably in direct employment but are doing staffing out of necessity" can move to direct employment.
◆ From "earning by quantity" to "earning by quality"
If a cartel is certified and the method of avoiding competition to inflate unit prices becomes harder to use in the future, staffing companies will be blocked from the option of "unfairly raising unit prices." Then the remaining survival strategy must shift to a healthier direction.
Possible directions include the following:
【① Business improvement and industry reorganization using AI】
Use AI and digital technology to streamline matching and administrative processing, creating a lean management structure that works even with thin profit margins. In this flow, industry reorganization will also progress.
【② Reducing low-unit-price simple administrative work and increasing the ratio of IT/high-skill professional specializations】
Reduce the ratio of simple administrative work that has low unit prices and is likely to be replaced by AI or automation, and shift to high-skill job types with high expertise, starting with IT. In areas where rates are high and added value is large, it is hard to get caught up in price competition, and profits can be secured legitimately.
【③ Improving treatment for indefinite-term staffing and increasing retention rates】
Improve the treatment of temporary staff through indefinite-term staffing and increase retention and continuation rates. Having excellent human resources work for a long time itself becomes a source of competitiveness.
In short, it is a shift from the old model of "earning thinly by quantity" and "secretly raising unit prices" to a 【model of "taking high unit prices fairly and squarely with high-quality human resources"】.
If this flow really progresses, the areas of replaceable simple work will be easily weeded out, and conversely, the treatment of workers who have refined their expertise will improve. For the working side, "how to build up one's own skills" is likely to become a more important crossroads than ever before.
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■■■ Summary
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Finally, I will organize the main points.
▶ A cartel is an act where rival companies, who should be competing, secretly coordinate prices and other factors. Because they pretend to compete while actually abandoning it, they are treated especially seriously and strictly prohibited under the Antimonopoly Act. And why something that "is over once it leaks" came to light this time—the process itself is also of interest.
▶ This case is a suspicion that five major staffing agencies aligned nationwide to raise staffing rates for "general administrative" work. If they raised prices under the pretext of returning them to staff but that portion went into the company's pocket, it is a completely problematic act. However, at this stage, it is strictly a "suspicion," and the investigation is just beginning.
▶ As for the impact on various parties, there is a possibility that wage hikes were not reflected for temporary workers, client companies may have been forced to raise unit prices as told, and there is a concern that returns to workers may instead stagnate due to future caution regarding price hikes, and for society as a whole, it may have fueled inflation.
▶ The staffing company business model is twofold: "increasing the number of contract positions or raising the unit price." Because differentiation is difficult and it easily falls into price competition, it structurally tends to be high-volume and low-margin, with final operating profit being only 1.2%. This thinness was the soil for the motivation to raise unit prices.
▶ From now on, a shift from "earning by quantity" to "earning by quality" is expected to progress. And hopefully, while leaving options for those who want to choose the flexible way of working called staffing, I hope that transitions to direct employment will increase even a little.
The news headline ends with the single line "Suspected cartel among major staffing agencies." But behind it lies the industry structure of a 1.2% profit margin, the motivation born from it, the impact on workers, client companies, and society, and the context leading to future changes in the industry.
As an active sales rep, this case is not someone else's problem. That is why, without defending or bashing the industry, I hope it moves in a better direction after understanding it honestly from its structure.
This article is based on reports as of June 2, 2026. The content includes things at the "suspicion" stage at this point. For the latest and accurate information, please check the announcements from the Japan Fair Trade Commission and the official announcements from each company. The breakdown of margin rates and profit rates are general figures based on data published by the Japan Staffing Services Association and differ from the actual figures of individual companies. The description regarding Pasona is the author's personal impression and does not indicate that the company was involved in this case at all.
