Singapore-based staffing platform Workmate acquired by Persol Asia Pacific

Workmate, a Singapore-based on-demand staffing platform, has been acquired by Persol Asia Pacific, one of the region’s largest HR service providers. Workmate focuses on frontline and essential workers, and the acquisition will allow it to expand its HR solutions throughout the Asia Pacific. Workmate currently operates in Thailand and Indonesia and is expanding operations into Singapore this month.

Persol Asia Pacific is part of Persol Holdings, which is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It is one of the largest human resources companies in Japan and has invested in HR tech companies including Glint.

Workmate’s Thailand team

Workmate was founded in 2016 to help businesses find frontline staff, while ensuring that workers get consistent employment. About 120,000 frontline workers and more than 800 companies are currently on its platform. The company defines frontline staff as essential workers, typically in low- to mid-skilled work, who provide essential services to the public. Sectors include logistics and warehousing, manufacturing, food and beverage, retail and back office roles like admin and customer service.

Workmate provides companies with a pre-vetted pool of workers for both short- and long-term work and uses proprietary AI-scoring algorithms to improve matching quality and attendance rates, worker retention and productivity. The algorithms take into account data points like work experience, location and skills, and combines that with first-hand behavioral data and worker history on Workmate’s platform, like attendance and supervisor ratings.

Workmate will retain its own branding after the acquisition and will run independently with Persol Asia Pacific as its parent company.

Singapore-based staffing platform Workmate acquired by Persol Asia Pacific by Catherine Shu originally published on TechCrunch