Question

Well as I agree with somewhat of Mr. Cook, thats not entirely correct. The rate of pay is based on liability and risks. For instance I have personel that perform office duties and I have personel that performs light industrial work. Now my rates for my office personel are 30% to 35% over the actualy pay grade. My rates for the industrial plant workers is 40% to 55% over their pay grade. It depends on the risk, your insurance guidelines and ammenties you wish to include with your services. So its not based on a competitive rate per say but on risk and liabilities. My experiances stem from my business in the construction HR/ Personel service related industry for the past 15 years. General laborers tend to run residential for 15%, commercial 25% and industrial at 33%. I hope this helps.

I've been an IT temporary consultant since '95 working for the likes of Robert Half Technology, TekSystems, Alden and others. Such firms fall under very stringent employment & labor laws and need to have a lot of cash flow and liability protection. As for your rate question, from what I've gleaned working with the above they have a 40%-60% "load" on what they pay the temp worker to cover social security, various taxes, unemployment compensation, errors-and-ommisions insurance and so on and so on. So, if they pay me $50/hr (as an example), then they need to bill their client $100-110 per hour. What this often does is force these staffing companies to be non-competitive cost wise. So they need to offer such things as liability protection, worker guarentees, work quality quarentees and other benefits that the client is willing to pay such a high fee for. Give entering into the field serious thought and get strong legal advice first. Good luck.

Basil, a few suggestions:
Visit a few staffing businesses in your area and see what fees they charge
Develop a Business Plan
Contact SCORE in your area. SCORE is FREE
Good luck, David