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Episode 173 11 August 2026
1 Playsin 7 hours
RCSA past-president Sinead Hourigan exits Robert Walters after two decades, the global staffing market grows for the first time since 2022, TalentVine's acquisition reopens the debate on why job-marketplace platforms keep failing, and NZ's unemployment hits a decade-high ahead of November's election. Plus — a Queensland court just gutted a non-compete clause in a ruling that could reshape how every employer drafts contracts, the ATO was forced to scrap an entire recruitment round after AI screened candidates without required human sign-off. Robert Walters' half-year results show revenue up but margins down, KordaMentha lands a new exec search partner amid an ICAC corruption inquiry, one Silicon Valley startup's "get inked, get hired" afterparty backfires spectacularly, and LinkedIn's first-ever Cities on the Rise list crowns an unexpected Australian winner. All that and more — tune in now.
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Transcript
Introduction and Wingman Recruitment
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you know who helps recruitment agencies recruit, Adele? It's Wingman Recruitment, flexible recruitment support built by recruiters for recruiters. More capacity, less pressure, better results.
00:00:12
Speaker
Learn more at wingmangroup.com.au and visit the services tab.
Sinead Hurigan's Career and Departure
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome to Recruitment News Australia. This is the news for the 11th of August, 2026. I'm Clannett. And I'm Adele Last. Sinead Hurigan, former president of the RCSA, announced via a LinkedIn post last Wednesday that she's leaving Robert Walters after more than two decades with the company.
00:00:42
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Sinead originally moved to Australia from Ireland back in 2001. then joined Robert Walters in Brisbane in 2003 and rapidly progressed, becoming a director by the end of the following year.
00:00:54
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After building the Brisbane Robert Walters business to around 40 people, Sinead moved into a head office position. working remotely as the company's first global head of customer experience. That expanded in 2024 to cover commercial and advisory. And then just last year in June 2025, she took on the title of global head of talent advisory.
00:01:14
Speaker
So a career that really spanned the full spectrum from setting up a niche division in Brisbane to shaping global strategy. And she wasn't just building within Robert Walters either. Sinead has a long history with the RCSA.
00:01:28
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She joined the National Board in 2014, having already served on the Queensland Northern Territory Council. And in late 2017, she made history as the first woman elected president of the RCSA for Australia and New Zealand, serving a two-year term.
00:01:43
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Sinead's total term on the board was just over six years, plus eight years on the Queensland and Northern Territory Council. And just two months ago, she was recognised with the industry's highest honour, awarded a Life Fellow at the Industry Awards Night in Melbourne.
00:02:00
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She's clearly been a fixture well beyond the recruitment industry too. Sinead has served as a CEDA trustee in Queensland and sat on the Queensland Council of the Australian British Chamber of Commerce.
00:02:12
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A packed resume, no doubt. As for her exit, Sinead struck a warm tone in her LinkedIn post. She said she leaves with enormous respect for Robert Walters and pride in what she and her colleagues built together. She said she's taking some time to pause, reflect and recharge and joke that pausing isn't really her strong suit.
00:02:32
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She's promised an update on her next move within a few weeks. So watch this space, a notable departure which has plenty of people in the industry wondering where Sinead lands next.
00:02:43
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R&A will let you know when we know. to some great news,
Global Staffing Market Trends
00:02:47
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Ross. The global staffing market has grown for the first time since 2022 with a new report from staffing industry analysts showing revenue was up 2% last year, hitting US$639 billion us dollars worldwide. Most of that growth came from the Asia-Pacific region.
00:03:05
Speaker
Combined revenue across the top 100 firms was flat in 2025 after dropping 4% in 2024. SIA's data confirmed fragmented industry. The top 20 firms only hold about 19% of the global market between them. The top 100 staffing firms produced $265 billion in sales 2025, which equates to about 40% of the global market.
00:03:22
Speaker
the top one hundred staffing firms produced two hundred and sixty five billion dollars in sales in twenty twenty five which equates to about forty percent of the global market Randstad keeps its crown to top spot for the eighth year running with $23 billion dollars in revenue and a 3.6% market share. Edeco and Manpower round out the podium in second and third.
00:03:46
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Geographically, the US dominates with 41 of the top 100 firms headquartered there, followed by the UK with 14 and Japan with 13. And more good news after SIA forecast the 2% global growth, will be exceeded this year with a forecast of 3% growth.
Talentvine Acquisition by JT Systems
00:04:06
Speaker
Recruitment agency and employer intermediary Talentvine has been acquired by JT Systems and will become part of JobTetris under the leadership of Brendan Tremble. Talentvine was established in late 2015 by Justin Fork and Tex Anderson. It has evolved into a B2B marketplace where employers could list a vacancy at no cost, receive bids from recruiters and choose their preferred proposal.
00:04:32
Speaker
Well, no surprise for me in this one, Adele. The job clearinghouse concept has been tried for nearly two decades and nobody has been able to make it work profitably at scale. Recruitment Revolution and Recruiter Critic from about a decade and a half ago were early failures. More recently, Find My Recruiter, Find A Recruiter and the Seek Recruiter Network all started with similar business models but all no longer operate.
00:05:00
Speaker
That's a lot of failures, it seems, Ross. And if Seek, with its deep pockets and massive customer base, decided to exit a market that they had invested a lot of money in, you can be sure there's not much upside for anyone. Why has this concept not worked at scale?
00:05:15
Speaker
As an outsider who hasn't been a stakeholder in this market, I can only go on what others tell me. Largely, the problem is that there just isn't enough money in it for recruitment agencies. Although not all the businesses I mentioned above have exactly the same business model, there are many more similarities than differences. Clearly, the employer wants the lowest price, regardless of what they might say. So agencies have to pitch low to win the work. The platform clips the ticket.
00:05:41
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The agency recruiter, typically a low-skilled one, because any decent recruiter has their own clients and doesn't need a third-party marketplace to generate jobs, is now working to fill low-quality job for a low fee.
00:05:52
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And no doubt the job is only listed on the platform because it's difficult to fill. The employer would, in most cases, have attempted to recruit the job directly first. So an inexperienced recruiter working with an unfamiliar client on a difficult to fill job that's already been on the market for say at least a month or more ah for a low contingent fee where the platform clips the ticket before the money hits the agency's account, if they fill it. It doesn't sound like a winning combination to me. Exactly. Most owners I've spoken to over the years about their experience with one or more of these platforms say it's really just not worth their time.
00:06:30
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Well, it seems JT Systems wants to rewrite that one. Its press release said, together we're creating an ecosystem that helps agencies discover new opportunities and grow their business while giving employers simpler access to specialist recruitment partners who can deliver the right talent.
00:06:48
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It's about creating more value, more transparency and better outcomes for everyone involved in the hiring process. JT Systems has flagged this acquisition as the first step in a broader plan to enhance the portal experience for recruitment agencies with further product development across sourcing, placement and the wider recruitment lifecycle expected in months ahead.
00:07:10
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I'll be watching this one with interest.
New Zealand Unemployment Concerns
00:07:12
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Zealand's unemployment rate jumped to its highest level in more than a decade after Statistics New Zealand's June quarter labour market update was released this week.
00:07:22
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Facing a national election in November, the incumbent National Party government in New Zealand is under even more pressure to retain the electorate's faith after the jobless rate rose to 5.6% in the June quarter, up from 5.4% in the previous quarter.
00:07:39
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You have to go back to September 2015 when the unemployment rate was 5.7% find a worse result. There are now more than 171,000 jobless workers actively seeking employment, a rise of 7,000 on the previous quarter, and it's up 13,000 compared to a year ago. Nearly one in five have been unemployed for over a year.
00:07:59
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The regions with the highest unemployment were Northland and Auckland, with rates above 6%, with all South Island regions below 5%. Finance Minister Nicola Willis pointed to a rough stretch for businesses this year. saying employers faced real uncertainty and rising costs that led many to pause hiring plans. The Employers and Manufacturers Association also flagged the Middle East conflict as a factor. The resulting swings in oil prices pushed up fuel and transport costs, undermining business confidence. The CPI is 4.1%, with wage growth remaining at a five-year low of 2%.
00:08:38
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Still, there's a note of optimism. Total employment is still growing, 5,000 more jobs in the June quarter and 33,000 more people in work compared to a year ago. it was the rise in the number of people entering the New Zealand workforce that caused the unemployment rate to rise.
00:08:53
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The EMA says businesses remain eager to grow once conditions stabilise and hiring intentions could improve if that uncertainty eases. The government says it's leaning on measures like fast-tracked construction projects, support for tourism and international education, and last year's investment boost tax incentive to help rebuild confidence.
00:09:14
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The most recent Roy Morgan poll from the first week of August shows that based on current voting intentions, the national-led government is set to lose a small number of seats but do well enough to still win the most seats of any party but still fall short of an outright majority.
RCSA Council Nominations
00:09:31
Speaker
hi If anyone out there has been thinking about getting more involved in shaping our industry, then the appropriate opportunity has arrived. The RCSA is calling for nominations for membership to its various regional and member group councils covering the Australian states and territories, New Zealand and the health and medical sectors.
00:09:48
Speaker
Each council member takes on a specific portfolio linked to one of RCSA's core areas of member value. The role does come with some significant responsibility, champion the RCSA's goals, represent your region or member group, help shape policy and advocacy, turn up to meetings, build relationships with stakeholders and support major events.
00:10:09
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And it's not just for people who've been around a while like you and me. The NextGen representative position is reserved specifically for those in their first five years in the industry. It's a great avenue for early career voices to be heard. And the Rep also leads the NextGen Collective, which offers networking and development opportunities for those newer to the sector.
00:10:30
Speaker
As a council member myself, I'd be happy to chat with anybody if they have any questions. The councils that are currently accepting nominations are ANRA and AMRANS, and the regional councils in New South Wales ACT, VICTAS, Queensland Northern Territory, WA, South Australia and New Zealand, Our nominations will close this Thursday, the 13th of August at 5pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.
00:10:53
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For more information, go to rcsa.com.au. Stay tuned for Question of the Week.
Risks of Worker Misclassification
00:11:06
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Question of the Week. How do you avoid a fair work investigation into your on-hire workforce? well I posed this question, Ross, because it's something that's been on my mind since I read a piece in The Guardian this weekend. It's an article about a staffing app that's been signing up gig workers as independent contractors.
00:11:26
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I read it too, Adele. It's a good jumping off point for this question because it lays out almost a textbook case of what could go wrong when nobody appears to take responsibility for classifying workers before hiring them.
00:11:41
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So for anyone who hasn't seen the article, the short version is that The Guardian reported that SUP, a popular hospitality shift matching app, requires workers to hold an ABN and treats them as individual contractors rather than casual employees.
00:11:57
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The work is bartending, table service, that sort of thing, and it appears to be ordinary rostered shift work. In the article, one worker who has used the platform for years said that he was never paid super ah superannuation and there was no mechanism even built into the app to collect that information.
00:12:15
Speaker
And that's the detail that stood out to me the most as well, Adele. It wasn't a one-off error. It was a structural gap. If the system itself has no way to ah pay or track super, that tells you the classification decision was baked in from the start, not assessed properly for each separate engagement.
00:12:39
Speaker
I note the article quoted SUP's chief executive, Jordan Murray. He said the company rejected and denied any suggestions or allegations made or raised in relation to misrepresentation of the working relationship arranged through SUP and any denied any sham contracting allegations.
00:13:00
Speaker
No doubt Fair Work will make its own assessment. The system having no way to track or pay super is what raised the red flag for me as well. The article makes a point that a workplace lawyer raised that the label platform or contract assigned to a relationship doesn't determine its legal status.
00:13:17
Speaker
What matters is the substance, really, like who controls the hours, who directs the work, and whether the person has genuine independence. which is really the crux of sham contracting. Under the Fair Work Act, misrepresenting an employment relationship as a contracting arrangement is unlawful and the penalties for business can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
00:13:40
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And it's not limited to the business that engage the worker directly. Third parties, including contractors,
Avoiding Worker Misclassification Penalties
00:13:48
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staffing businesses, recruitment agencies, labour hire firms, who facilitated or arranged that mischaracterised relationship can be liable too. And really, that's um exactly why this matters so much for recruiters and hiring managers specifically.
00:14:03
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Like the recruiter is often the one structuring the engagement, briefing the client or advising on how a role should be classified. If we don't apply careful thinking to a worker's classification, instead seeing it as a legal obstacle to be hurtled, We're putting ourselves and you know potentially our clients and the workers themselves at risk.
00:14:22
Speaker
And to be fair to hiring managers, i mean I don't think most of them are trying to dodge obligations maliciously. a lot of the time, it's just ignorance or it's a misunderstanding, an assumption that if someone has an ABN, that settles the question. Which is a myth we hear constantly. Having an ABN is an administrative detail. It says nothing about whether the underlying relationship is genuinely one of contracting or in reality, a casual employment job.
00:14:49
Speaker
So let's get... Practical, really practical here, Adele. If someone's listening to this and thinking, well, how do we inform ourselves and protect ourselves from ending up in a fair work investigation like the one that's been called for in that article, what would you tell them? Well, I'd point to three things that every recruiter and hiring manager should be doing, Ross. I think, firstly, they need to assess the substance of the role, not just the paperwork. Before anyone signs a contractor agreement, ask the real questions and Does the person control their own hours and rate? Can they subcontract the work? Do they supply their own equipment? Can they work for competitors freely?
00:15:28
Speaker
I mean, the answer to most of those questions is no, then you're most likely looking at an employment relationship regardless of what the contract calls it. That's critical. Avoid the tick-a-box mentality and make a judgment call on the facts of each individual worker's engagement. A senior associate at law firm, Morris Blackburn, quoted in The Guardian said, the way Sup described the default working relationship was peculiar looking at the type of work that this is.
00:15:59
Speaker
Secondly, you need to build classification checks into your process, not just as an afterthought. I think that means having a standard checklist or a decision tree at the intake stage before a candidate's placed and involving legal or potentially ah HR early if there's any doubt, waiting until a complaint or the audit process surfaces um some sort of issue is just too late in the process and really asking for trouble.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I'd add to that, document your reasoning. If you assess a role as a genuine contracting role, write down why based on the specifics of the engagement. That record is what will help your case if the classification is ever challenged.
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's exactly right. It ties into it. um The third thing I would say would be to audit your existing on-hire arrangements regularly, especially anything placed through third-party platforms or apps.
00:16:52
Speaker
Don't assume that because an arrangement was set up in a certain way. Originally, it's still accurate as well. Roles evolve, supervision levels change. What started out as flexible contracting can drift into something that looks a lot like casual employment over time. Yeah, that is a very good point because um the case in the Guardian article involves workers who've been using the same platform, SAP, for years without anyone revisiting whether the original classification was still valid.
00:17:22
Speaker
Yeah, which brings us back to the union response in the article, the concern about the growing gigification of hospitality work and the idea that convenience for businesses shouldn't come at the expense of workers' basic rights and security was the point that they made. And I think that's probably fair enough. We all want people to be employed and paid consistent with all workplace laws.
00:17:44
Speaker
Agreed. Flexibility isn't the enemy here. Plenty of workers genuinely want benefit from flexible arrangements. The issue is when flexibility becomes a label used to strip away entitlements while still expecting someone to turn up, follow instructions and work like any other rostered PAYG employee.
00:18:02
Speaker
So to sum up for anyone taking notes, assess the substance of the relationship rather than relying on the contract label. build a proper classification checklist into your placement process with documented reasoning and regularly audit existing on high arrangements rather than assuming they're set and forget.
00:18:20
Speaker
Get those three things right and you are in a much stronger position, not just to avoid a Fair Work investigation, but to make sure the people you're placing are being treated fairly.
00:18:31
Speaker
Misrepresenting an employment relationship as an independent contracting relationship known as sham contracting is unlawful under the Fair Work Act and can attract penalties of up to $546,000 for large businesses.
00:18:46
Speaker
And third parties, again, recruitment businesses and staffing firms that are found to be involved in the contraventions can also be fined. So at the end of the day, the simple message is check, don't assume. Make sure that you're taking 100% responsibility for correct worker classification. Don't delegate that very important task to an app or ai or other well-meaning but unqualified people providing the advice.