Managing your labour contracting

It makes business sense to check that your contractors and any subcontractors in the supply chain comply with workplace laws.

Where do I start?

When you are looking to contract out labour, it’s a good idea to make sure you understand the cost of employment. Your contractor/subcontractor will need to pay their employees correctly as well as cover employment costs (like superannuation, workers' compensation, payroll tax, insurance and licenses). If you understand these costs, it'll help you make sure the contracted price isn't too low.

Some states have laws requiring labour hire businesses to be licensed, and for users of labour hire to only use licensed labour hire providers. These laws are managed by the relevant states.

To find out about using labour hire or applying for a licence, contact:

Follow our 5 steps to effectively engage a new contractor

The steps are:

  1. Know the pay and conditions that apply.
  2. Ask potential contractors about their workplace practices.
  3. Check the contract price to make sure it's enough to cover wages.
  4. Set clear expectations.
  5. Make sure you know of subcontracting arrangements.

We've developed resources to help you do this:

Review your existing contracts

Things change over time. You can follow these 3 steps to check whether there are any issues in your contracting network:

  1. Map your existing contracts.
  2. Examine compliance with workplace laws.
  3. Act on any problems you find.

Read our Guide to monitoring your labour contracting  for help on mapping existing contractors and subcontractors, checking compliance and addressing any problems.

Regular self-audits can help. You (and your contractors) can use our Guide to self-auditing your business  to check you're complying with workplace laws.

What we do

We work with businesses, associations and government to help them get it right when it comes to contracting labour and supply chains.

We:

Tools and resources