How a Recruitment Agency Works
A recruitment agency finds candidates and introduces them to you. Once you choose someone, they become your employee — on your payroll, under your award obligations, with your workers' compensation policy covering them. The agency is usually paid a one-off placement fee, commonly calculated as a percentage of the role's first-year salary.
Recruitment suits permanent positions where you want the person long term: a site supervisor, a foreman, a project engineer or a leading hand you plan to keep across multiple jobs. The trade-off is time. Advertising, screening, interviews, reference checks and notice periods mean a recruited hire can take weeks to start.
How Labour Hire Works
Labour hire creates a three-way relationship. The labour hire company employs the worker, pays their wages, super and payroll tax, and holds the workers' compensation insurance. You — the host business — direct the day-to-day work on site. You pay the labour hire company an hourly charge rate for the hours worked, and nothing when the worker isn't needed.
In NSW, a provider supplying workers this way must hold a labour hire licence. Supreme Labour is a licensed, CM3-certified labour hire company based in Sydney, so our clients engage workers knowing the employment, insurance and safety prequalification side is already handled.
Labour Hire vs Recruitment Agency: Key Differences
Employment: with recruitment, the worker is your employee. With labour hire, they remain employed by the provider. That affects who is responsible for correct award pay, overtime, allowances, leave and super under the Building and Construction General On-site Award.
Speed: recruitment is measured in weeks. Labour hire is measured in hours or days — Supreme Labour places workers across Sydney metro within 24 hours because our pool of ticketed workers is already onboarded and verified.
Flexibility: a recruited employee is a fixed cost and terminating employment carries obligations. Labour hire lets you scale a crew up for a concrete pour or a fit-out phase, then scale back down when that stage is finished.
Cost Comparison
On paper, a labour hire hourly rate looks higher than an employee's base wage. That's because the charge rate bundles in costs you'd otherwise carry yourself: superannuation, workers' compensation premiums, payroll tax, leave accruals, recruitment and onboarding time, ticket verification and the provider's margin.
For a permanent role you'll fill once, a recruitment fee usually works out cheaper over a year or more. For project-based work, short-term peaks, cover for absences or uncertain programmes, labour hire is typically more economical because you only pay for productive hours and carry no ongoing employment cost when the job winds down.
Compliance and Risk on Construction Sites
Construction carries more compliance overhead than most industries. Workers need a valid White Card, and many roles need High Risk Work Licences or other tickets — EWP, dogging, rigging, traffic control. With a recruited employee, verifying those tickets and keeping records current is your job.
A reputable labour hire provider does that verification before the worker reaches site. At Supreme Labour, every worker's tickets are checked against issuing records, and our CM3 certification means our safety systems have been independently assessed — something many tier one and tier two builders require before a supplier can work on their sites.
Whichever model you use, check the basics: a current NSW labour hire licence (search the public register), proof of workers' compensation and public liability insurance, and a clear process for replacing a worker who doesn't suit the site.
Which Model Should You Choose?
Use a recruitment agency when you're filling a permanent, ongoing position and have time to run a proper hiring process. Use labour hire when you need ticketed workers on site quickly, for a defined project or phase, without adding to your permanent headcount.
Many Sydney builders use both: a core permanent team recruited directly, topped up with labour hire for peaks. If you need labourers, traffic controllers, EWP operators or other ticketed workers on site this week, contact Supreme Labour — we supply verified crews across Greater Sydney and Queensland.