Top 10 Countries by Number of Recruitment Companies

This came my way the other day from the International Confederation of Private Employment Agencies (CIETT). 

Top 10 Countries and Number of Recruitment Companies
Japan:  30,600
UK:  10,462
Germany:  7,885
USA:  6,000
South Africa:  2,739
Netherlands:  2,100
Czech Republic:  1,707
Poland:  1,541
Brazil:  1,250
France:  1,200

Now, the data is from 2006 - but I imagine it's probably still pretty reflective of the order just two years on.  What's interesting is that Japan has three times as many agencies as us despite only having twice the population of the UK and that the US has half the number of agencies des pite having five times the popluation.   

I suspect I would need to pull in figures about unemployment and staff attrition rates, as well as data about country specific legislation in order to explain this fully.   As I don't have this I will simply share the figures and allow you to make your own assumptions.