Great Southern only began operations this month but already it has received an influx of inquiries from businesses looking to leverage off the firm’s decades of experience, and is ready and able to service the mining and construction industries Australia-wide.

The company has attracted more than 8000 potential applicants to its books in just a matter of weeks, O’Keeffe said.

With 18 years of experience in underground coal mining and the gas sector, O’Keeffe, said the team at Great Southern had a “vast amount” of experience in supplying personnel to the mining and construction industries, and that the company’s extensive industry knowledge would differentiate it from other labour hire companies.

“Our HR [human resources] response team are highly experienced and have a really strong working knowledge of what jobs employees are required to perform on sites and what each job’s personnel requirements are,” O’Keeffe said.

“In the past, when I was a client of labour hire companies, they would contact me offering to supply labour in a capacity that was totally inadequate for what we were looking for.

“At Great Southern, when a client requests labour for a certain job, our team automatically knows the skill sets required for the job and other useful skills to have, which is a rare ability in this industry.”

O’Keeffe believes these key points of difference will set Great Southern apart from its competitors and ensure the right workforce is supplied every time.

“We have seen labour hire employment grow in Australia two fold since the late 1990s,” he said.

“With that growth has come some stereotypical views of labour hire with the association of lack of job satisfaction and low productivity.

“Our mission at Great Southern is to be the market leader by breaking through the stereotypes and bringing quality labour hire to the mining industry.

“We will achieve this by breaking down the barriers of labour hire, listening to our clients’ needs, having innovative and best practice recruitment, selection and retention strategies, and providing skilled and competent candidates.”

He added that Great Southern had the support of a global mining company, and was already working on several underground mine sites in the metalliferous and coal sectors.