Our opinion on the current state of WKF

Workforce (WKF) is a labour broker that also does recruitment, specialist staffing, training, consulting, employee health management and sells financial and insurance products. The Constitutional Court decision known as the "Assign" case found that a tri-partite relationship existed between the labour broker, the employee and the client and that temporary employees would be regarded as permanent after they had been continuously employed for a period of three months or longer. This ruling legitimised the labour broking industry and gave clarity to the position of temporary workers. Workforce has benefited from its diversification away from labour broking into insurance and other products. In its results for the 6 months to 30th June 2023 the company reported revenue up 7% and headline earnings per share (HEPS) of 1,7c compared with 14,7c in the previous period. The company blamed, "...low levels of economic activity, loadshedding, high interest rates, lack of client confidence, and decreased demand for personnel services. Overhead costs increased by 12% because of burgeoning inflation rates and operating expenses". The company is reducing its staff by 10% - 15%. The problem with this share from a private investor's perspective is that it is too thinly traded to justify investment. Only 8% of its issued shares are available to the public and they are traded only sporadically. For this reason, we cannot recommend investing in this share.