Competing labour hire firms appear to be the big winners following the demise of ResCo Services this week.
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National company Skilled has confirmed they will be taking the majority of the production workers formerly hired by ResCo.
The final number of former ResCo production workers re-employed with labour hire company Skilled will ultimately depend on the needs of our customers says general manager NSW and QLD, Todd Pavlou.
Mr Pavlou estimates they could be taking on between 230 and 250 production workers and confirmed Skilled has contracts with Rio Tinto’s Mount Thorley Warkworth and Hunter Valley Operations.
“We have already processed the vast majority of them, it has been a frantic 48 hours but like any employer we have to go through the correct processes to see if the candidates are suitable,” he said.
“This has included conducting interviews and inductions but some are already back on shift.”
We hope to complete this process by the end of the week, Mr Pavlou said.
The ResCo Group of Companies, wholly owned subsidiaries of Bluestone Global Limited ceased trading on Monday August, 4.
Liquidators KordaMentha stated the following day they would be transitioning 220 truck operators and trainees to Skilled, 35 light vehicle trades to Skilled or Workpac and a further 80 staff to new employment by Wednesday.
In an email The Argus received on Thursday afternoon Stephen Sasse, Chief Executive Officer of Bluestone Global Limited wrote in reply to questions that a number of trainees have not been offered positions.
He suggests this would be because the new employer will not get the training subsidy for the candidate (a trainee can only have one traineeship).
Mr Sasse added a number of people have rejected offers of employment, particularly from Workpac because the rate of pay is lower than ResCo would pay.
Others have rejected offers of casual employment and are holding out for permanent appointments.
A representative from KordaMentha said there have been some issues that will take a little time to settle, but we repeat we are confident that 95% will have the opportunity to transition.
Of interest out of the fallout over the collapse of Bluestone is the fact that Skilled bought out Tesa which like ResCo Services was founded by Craig Ransely (see adjoining timeline).
Mr Ransley achieved notoriety at last year’s ICAC hearings investigating his involvement in the allocation of the exploration licence to Doyles Creek Mining.
