Starting an employment agency - viable?

Leftynick

Hi,

Myself and a friend have been discussing the pro's and cons of trying our hand at joint venture into the employment agency business supplying tradespeople to individual customers and larger "sites".We both know someone who has done this quite successfully recently and are have a couple of things in our favour. My friend already has another business so we could use that as a business address reducing set up/running costs. I have contacts in the local building and in particular plumbing trade so should be able to source workers fairly easily. The idea would be to create a limited company (only £75 ish?) and advertise on the web and local press for workers and customers. Its only an idea at the moment but it seems to us there would be low start up costs and minimal risk involved as we would only be paying workers who we got work for.

I'm sure there are pit falls and things we haven't thought of to take into consideration so thought i would see if anyone has any advice to offer.

Savvy_Sue

My gut feeling with this is that the best tradespeople don't need such an agency, and have long waiting lists - eg "not taking on any jobs until the end of next year" from the roofer I was recommended to contact! :eek:

Plus how would you get repeat business? If I got a plumber through your agency, I'd contact him direct the next time I needed him and cut out your commission!

Although I believe there is such an agency near where I live, haven't had cause to use it. And I can see advantages, like maybe one phone call to get several quotes for the same job, or one phone call to contact several different trades for a heap of little jobs.

MalcolmCooper

I have a good friend in Hungary who runs such an agency supplying East European workers to building contractors/sites over here. That's serious competition and with Romania soon coming into the EU such competition will only increase. Perhaps that's a way to go with your idea?

lazy_girl

Could be, but make sure your workers are unionised and entitled to similar rates of pay as UK workers.