| name | trend-analysis-readout |
| description | Produce a defensible staffing market-trend readout — segment-resolved, SIA-anchored, triangulated across primary sources, with the inflection (not just the level) named and soft numbers marked. Reach for this when a client wants the market read for healthcare and/or education staffing. |
Skill: Trend-analysis readout
A trend readout an operator will argue with is a liability. This skill builds one they'll trust: every figure sourced and dated, every segment named, the inflection called.
Step 1 — Resolve to segments, never the aggregate
"Healthcare staffing is down" is false for locums (the growth segment). Read each segment separately: travel nurse, allied, locum, per-diem; education special-ed/therapy, teletherapy, subs. See ../../knowledge/staffing-market-trends-2026.md.
Step 2 — Anchor sizing to SIA, footnote broad-TAM houses
Use SIA's segment definitions (industry-canonical): ~$39.4B total US healthcare staffing (2025), travel ~$14.2B / allied ~$9.8B / locum ~$9.6B / per-diem ~$4.5B. The much larger Grand View/Precedence TAMs use broader definitions — footnote separately, never mix into one chart.
Step 3 — Triangulate every trend claim
A single press release is not a trend (§4). Confirm with a second primary source — a SEC filing beats a vendor blog. The strongest 2025–26 anchors are public filings: AMN FY2025 −8%, Cross Country Nurse & Allied −25%, which corroborate SIA's contraction-then-bottoming read.
Step 4 — Name the inflection, not just the level
"−9% YoY but +6% sequential" tells the operator the bottom is in; "−9%" alone misleads. For each segment, state direction and second-derivative where the data supports it (the travel-nurse quarter-over-quarter narrowing through 2025 is the headline inflection).
Step 5 — Connect trends to the client's book
A market read is only useful if it implies an action: travel-nurse bottoming → defend share into the recovery; locum growth → where to invest; ESSER cliff → frame contract staffing as the budget-flexible answer; gig-platform rise → a model to watch, not necessarily to copy; AI in recruiting → the productivity lever.
Step 6 — Mark the soft numbers and the verification gaps
SIA editorial pages, BLS, and Becker's commonly 403 to automated fetch — figures extracted that way are [unverified] until re-opened. Advisory-blog benchmarks are [ESTIMATE]. Say which primary source closes each gap (§3 #9).
Step 7 — Date everything
The 2021–22 travel-nurse spike is the cautionary tale: a rate or size quoted without a date can be off by 30%+. Every figure carries its retrieval date.
Output
Use ../../templates/market-trend-readout.md. Pair with competitive-positioning-analysis for the who-wins layer.
