Take-over keeps pay flowing for temporary staff in Bognor

Interaction Recruitment stepped in at the last minute to rescue Alexander Maguire Recruitment after it went into administration.

The move ensured the workers who were employed through Alexander Maguire’s office in the High Street were able to collect their weekly wages as usual.

Without it, they would have been unaware the payments had failed to be made into their banks.

Andrew Gilchrist, Interaction’s managing director, said: “These poor workers have bills to pay and families to feed.

“We received a call hours before the payroll deadline that the temporary workers were not going to get paid.

“We knew of the business and worked through the night with the administrators, Begbies, and the great management team at Interaction have ensured all the temporary workers are being paid.”

Alexander Maguire opened on the High Street earlier this year. Interaction’s Worthing branch manager, David Atkins, estimated up to 100 workers had jobs based there.

It was likely the premises would be kept by Interaction but it was too soon to say if the office would become a satellite office or a full-scale recruitment base.

Alexander Maguire had more than 500 workers spread among eight offices. Its takeover last Friday is a further expansion by Interaction.

The company has grown to a £70m annual turnover through 40 branches after it was founded in 1986.

Mr Gilchrist warned further insolvencies were likely among recruitment companies.

The industry was riddled with low profit margins and ‘ridiculous’ job laws, such as new agency worker regulations, he claimed, with the opposite effect to the one intended of protecting workers.