Temporary employment SA’s biggest job creator

THE TEMPORARY employment service (TES) industry has created more jobs in the South African economy than any other industry since 1995, according to Workforce Holdings.

The listed human capital services company, which released its annual results yesterday, said the TES industry also employed far more youth than any other industry and this was crucial as more than 50 percent of the country’s youth was unemployed.

At least 5.6 million new jobs were created in South Africa between 1995 and 2014 and 14 percent of these jobs were from TES alone.

The group indicated that pending labour legislation, including the Constitutional Court ruling on the “deeming provision” and the introduction of the national minimum wage in May, would afford it the opportunity to actively engage with clients and provide them with robust solutions to meet the changing regulatory landscape.

Group chief executive of Workforce, Philip Froom, said: “Workforce is committed to facilitating employment by enabling a flexible workforce for corporates while simultaneously ensuring the protection of workers’ rights.

“We’re providing permanent employment to 1 343 employees, remunerating 34 241 assignees weekly, training 137 000 people annually, facilitating 4 600 learnership and internship programmes, insuring more than 36 277 lifestyle benefit policies and conducting more than 71 396 medical examinations through our 26 operating brands, network of 103 branches and 18 training centres across South Africa.”

Workforce reported that its results continued to show solid, albeit modest, growth.

Revenue for the year increased by 11.3 percent to R2.8 billion, compared with R2.5bn in 2016, of which 4.6 percent was attributable to organic growth.

Lower gross margins of 22.6 percent compared with 23.7 percent in 2016 resulted due to the conclusion of several large infrastructure projects last year and a challenging recruitment environment reduced the group’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation marginally to R133.9million, compared with R134.4m in 2016.

Operating expenses, including costs from acquisitions, increased by 11.1 percent, resulting in an unchanged operating expense-to-turnover ratio of 18.3 percent from 18.3 percent in 2016. Organic operating expenses increased by 2.9 percent.

Profit after tax increased by 7.6percent to R98.5m from R91.6m, and headline earnings a share rose by 7percent to 42.8 cents a share from 40c in 2016.

Workforce shares rose 8.97 percent on the JSE yesterday to close at R1.58.