Labour brokering

Labour brokering is a South African term for a form outsourcing practiced (In Namibia, known as labour hire) in which companies contract labour brokers to provide them with casual labour.

Labour brokers are different from recruitment agencies in that labour brokers handle almost all aspects of the worker's employment (including interviews, recruitment, HR, admin, payroll, transport, etc.), whereas recruitment agencies are only responsible for sourcing candidates for employment. In essence, rather than a company hiring a worker, it hires a labour broker who hires the worker in its stead.^[1] In other jurisdictions, labour brokering is referred to as Labour hire, Permatemp, or Employment agency.

The current statutory definition of a labour broker under South African law, as of 1 March 2009, is "any natural person who conducts or carries on any business whereby such person for reward provides a client of such business with other persons to render a service or perform work for such client, or procures such other persons for the client, for which services or work such other persons are remunerated by such person".^[2]