People use “labour hire”, “recruitment” and “on-hire” like they mean the same thing. They don’t. The short version: labour hire and on-hire are the same arrangement under two names, and recruitment is a different service entirely. Which one you want depends on whether you need someone on site next week, or someone permanently on your books.
Labour hire, in plain terms
Labour hire is when a provider employs the worker, and that worker is placed on your site to do the job. The provider handles the worker’s payroll and employment paperwork as their legal employer. You direct the work on site day to day.
This is why businesses use it for short jobs, seasonal peaks, or when a project needs extra hands fast without taking on a permanent hire. It’s flexible: scale the crew up for a busy stretch, then scale back down when the job’s done, without going through a redundancy process.
Our labour hire service works this way: you tell us the role and the site, we supply workers who are already employed and ready to go.
On-hire: same thing, different name
“On-hire” is the other name you’ll hear for this exact arrangement. It shows up more in industry and award language than in everyday conversation, but it’s describing the same setup as labour hire: a worker employed by one business, working under the direction of another. If someone asks whether you use an “on-hire workforce”, they’re asking the labour hire question in different words.
There’s no practical difference to plan around. If a supplier, a form or an award refers to “on-hire”, read it as labour hire. Some people also use “on hire” (no hyphen) or “contract labour” loosely to mean the same thing. The underlying arrangement, one business employing the worker while another directs the work on site, doesn’t change with the wording.
Where recruitment is different
Recruitment (sometimes called permanent placement) is a different service. Instead of supplying a worker who stays employed by the provider, recruitment finds and places a candidate directly into your business. Once they start, they’re your employee: on your payroll, under your conditions, for as long as the role exists.
Recruitment suits roles you know will be ongoing, where you want the person building a career with your business rather than moving between sites and providers. It’s a slower process than labour hire, because you’re hiring for the long term rather than filling a gap this week, and it comes with a bigger commitment on both sides: once someone’s hired permanently, they’re your employee for as long as the role exists, not a resource you can scale down when the workload drops off.
If a permanent hire is what you’re actually after, permanent recruitment is the service to look at instead of labour hire.
Which one do you actually need?
A quick way to work it out:
- Need someone on site this week, for a defined job or period? That’s labour hire (or on-hire, same thing).
- Filling a gap while workload is unpredictable, or scaling a crew up and down with the project? Labour hire again.
- Hiring for a permanent role that isn’t going anywhere? That’s recruitment.
- Not sure yet whether the role will still exist in six months? Start with labour hire. You can always move to a permanent hire later once you’re certain.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive either. Plenty of businesses run a permanent core team and bring in labour hire workers around it for peaks, specialist trades, or short-notice gaps.
Get the right workers on site
If you’re trying to work out which arrangement fits the job in front of you, that’s a conversation worth having before you commit to either. Tell us what you need on site and we can talk through whether labour hire, on-hire style crewing, or a permanent placement is the better fit.
