RIB Report 2014/15 Review: Temp/contract market surges to record high

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Last week I wrote about the Recruitment
Industry Benchmarking Report 2014/15 review, in which I analysed the vast drop
off in drop that commonly occurs when an agency moves from less than 10 staff
to 11 to 20 employees.

This week I am returning to the same document to have
a closer look at the temp and contract results.

Here’s what
the data reported:

Productivity area	FY2011	FY2012	FY2013	FY2014	FY2015
Total annual temp/contract hours processed per participant#	236,375	219,323	197,629	201,387	251,624
Average temp/contract gross profit (GP) as a % of sales	14.4%	14.0%	13.4%	12.9%	13.1%
Average temp/contract contribution to total agency GP	56%	53%	56%	56%	59%

#126
agencies

As you can
see from the above data, the news was very good all round. Total Annual Hours
per participant (agency) surged nearly 25 per cent to reach a new record high
of an average of 251,624 hours processed for the 12 month period. This was
especially encouraging after the worrying decline across 2011 – 2013.

Total
average contract/temp sales improved 20 per cent (to just under $16 million),
compared to the previous financial year with a total of 85 out of the 126
agencies reporting a year-on-year improvement.

Even better
news was that the increase in hours was accompanied by an uptick in the average
annual margin from 12.9% to 13.1%.This margin increase held up in the face of
average annual per hour charge rate, across the whole report (126 agencies)
falling 4 per cent, indicating the increase in volume of hours was concentrated
at the lower end of the contract/temp market.

I don’t know
why the temp/contract results have improved so much this past year but I
suspect it would be attributable to some, or all, of the following:

1. Internal recruitment teams are less competent in
sourcing quality candidates for temp/contract roles hence the need to go to an
agency.

2. Perm roles have been harder to fill hence
temps/contractors are brought on to fill the gaps until a permanent employee
starts.

3. Demand in the economy has improved but companies,
cautious about the strength of the improvement, initially improve their
employee capacity through temp/contract resources before perm employees.

Regardless
of the reasons, our industry can be heartened with this very real evidence that
the temp and contract labour services we provide are not just valued, they are
in greater demand than ever before.

This
evidence is even more pleasing given:

a) The expansion of online employment
marketplaces

b) The rise of RPOs

c) The PR machine that the ‘recruitment
industry disruptors’ (yawn) seem to keep alive

My overall
conclusion is that the future of our industry is looking bright, very bright,
contrary to the many naysayers who love to predict the end of our industry.

However …
let’s remember the reality (as evidenced by the 126 RIB Report participants) of
the most recent year (2014/15) compared to the previous year:

·
47 per cent did not
improve their profitability

·
13 per cent made a
loss

·
Participants in the
21 to 30 employee range reported median staff turnover of 40%

The key to
being on the right side of the industry good news is focus.

What’s your
focus right now?

I acknowledge and greatly appreciate Nigel and Deb’s permission to
republish data from the F15 RIB Review. If you are interested in how
benchmarking your agency’s performance can assist you improve productivity
please contact Nigel or Deb via this link.

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