Four staffing firms have joined international recruiter Empresaria’s recruitment hub in Singapore, launched in January.

The hub, an office in Singapore provided by Empresaria Group, gives recruiters from staffing businesses within the group the opportunity to establish a presence in Singapore at an “absolute minimum” cost, according to Joost Kreulen, head of Asian Operations, Empresaria Group. Kreulen told Recruiter: “Each individual brand can go to Singapore itself, and bring in people to run its own office, but it is costly if everybody goes in on their own. This brings down the cost of operating your own brand to an absolute minimum.”

The hub is “an incubator concept”, he said. “Once they develop their business and are interested in staying in Singapore, they have the opportunity to leave the hub office and set up their own legal entity.”

The four Empresaria operating companies who have joined are Monroe Consulting, LMA, Mansion House and McCall.

Rebecca Christian, who leads the insurance and financial services division of Mansion House, told Recruiter:”Our plan is to open up an office in Hong Kong in the next 18 months and to grow the existing teams we have in Singapore to ensure the best possible market coverage.”

Kreulen said Empresaria was keen to use the hub concept in other parts of Asia. “If it is successful we will most likely bring the concept to Hong Kong or maybe Sydney,” he said.

As long as there is no conflict with Empresaria’s commercial interests, other staffing business could join the hub. “If we move into Sydney or Shanghai and set up a hub, the more people you have, then the lower the cost gets,” he explained.

The key features:
- Empresaria Group provides central services such as IT
- these costs are shared by staffing companies who pay a price per consultant
- up to 12 places are available.
- each place costs roughly 25% of that of employing a consultant in London
- companies agree to remain in the hub for a minimum of 12 months.