PEOs provide payroll, employee benefits, HR, workers' compensation, and risk management services to small and mid-sized businesses that might otherwise not offer certain benefits to their employees. (Photo: Shutterstock)

If there's one segment of the economy that's experiencing explosive growth, it's professional employer organizations. In fact, according to the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, such companies—which provide payroll, benefits and other HR services to client companies—are seeing employment growth that is 14 times higher than the growth rate in the U.S. economy overall.

The report highlights a new study by economists Laurie Bassi and Dan McMurrer of McBassi and Associates, which finds that there are 907 PEOs in the U.S. Those PEOS employ 3.7 million worksite employees (WSEs). Annual wages in the PEO industry total $176 billion, and 175,000 businesses partner with a PEO.

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Marlene Satter

Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.