Our history

We started as one office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1948. It was simple - our founders, attorneys Elmer Winter and Aaron Scheinfeld needed a typist to help them meet a project deadline, but they were unable to find a substitute on a temporary basis. They realised there was a market for a temporary recruitment agency - and Manpower was born.

In 1956, we opened a small office in London and became the first recruitment company to go international. Opened by two outstanding secretaries Norma Levy and Doreen Woolf, they started a movement that said to the world "Here comes Manpower".

From there we've grow into a $20 billlion business, with the world's largest, industry-leading network of nearly 3,000 offices in 80 countries and territories worldwide. Each year we place over 3.4 million people into jobs with nearly 400,000 of our clients across the world.

In 2016, we were proud to celebrate our 60th anniversary in the UK - watch this video to find out more about what we've stood for throughout the decades: