Jobandtalent is a Madrid-based digital company specializing in connecting temporary employees with employers from different industries. This company has received funding of €88 million or $108 million through its Series C. The total capital for the company has reached €166 million.
This company describes itself as operating in its beginning phase even when it was founded in 2009, and it has raised more than $290 million in the last decade. Jobandtalent has said that more than 80,000 people have availed the services of this company in the seven markets it operates, which are France, Sweden, the U.K, Spain, Mexico, Colombia and Germany.
More than 750 employers, including Huawei, Saint Gobain, eBay, Bayer, Ceva Logistics, Santander and Carrefour, have also signed up for temporary labour.
This company competes with companies like Adecco and Randstad, which follow the traditional staffing mode. However, newer startups are also entering the market (like Uber through its app called Works).
Juan Urdiales, Co-founder of Jobandtalent, said in an interview that the company would continue to expand through Europe and enter into new markets like U.S and LatAm countries. The company’s main markets will still be Spain and the U.K, and it will continue to operate in sectors like logistics, transport, last mile and warehousing.
The company’s lead investor is Infravia, a French private equity firm. This company invested $30 million through a Growth Tech Fund launched last year. This tech fund invests in European B2B High growth technological companies.
Other companies like Atomic, DN Capital, Kibo Ventures, and Seek participated in the process.
The co-founder mentioned that the recent covid-19 pandemic had created more significant opportunities for digital staffing platforms, so the company decided to raise the funding first. Covid-19 has brought new technological innovations. The staffing market is experiencing tremendous growth potential through its transformation from physical stores to data-driven platforms.
In 2016, the company shifted its focus from enterprise recruitment to SME recruitment. The company utilised the increasing demand for gig works through smartphone applications. This company manages over 500 temporary employees. However, the issue of worker precariousness is still present, and the company fights it by providing increased benefits to the customers.
Most gig platforms do not adequately protect the rights and benefits of the workers by providing them with contractual guarantees. However, this company always tries to get better deals for the temporary workers. These workers have advance pay, training courses, and health insurance. However, all the benefits are not available in all countries.
Jobandtalent uses a worker scoring algorithm named Worker Quality Score (WQS). Urdiales mentioned that criteria like the attrition rate, productivity metrics, and absenteeism rate makes up this score.
However, this can have serious legal complications for some agencies as EU citizens have the right to protect their data under GDPR. Rights to human review of automated decision-making that will impact their personal and professional lives also fall under the legal domain. Companies like Uber and Deliveroo have faced similar issues and legal challenges.
The European Commission has also decided to change the legal policies for digital services to reduce the risk of bias and discrimination.
In this context, Urdiales has said that the platforms give continuous feedback to the employees based on the primary metrics for improving their professional careers.
