Labor Temp Agency Opens New Office, Plans 2 More

One of the nation’s fastest-growing temporary-services companies is launching a major expansion in Orange County. Labor Ready, the leading provider of temporary manual laborers, just opened a Costa Mesa branch, and at the end of this month it plans to have new sites established in Westminster and Anaheim. The company already has offices in Fullerton and Tustin, which it opened about three years ago.

The Fullerton office, the company’s busiest location in the county, sends more than 100 workers a day out on jobs, ranging from loading trucks to cleaning up debris to washing dishes.

“In Orange County, we do a lot of construction cleanup,” said Greg Reynolds, Labor Ready’s senior district manager for Southern California. “In other words, digging a ditch, hauling lumber, picking up scraps--anything having to do with supporting the construction industry.”

The company also recently sent a crew of local workers to San Diego to help with Super Bowl cleanup.

Labor Ready, based in Tacoma, Wash., has been making waves across the country with its fast growth and unique specialty of supplying only temporary manual laborers. About 90% of the jobs it fills require no skills and pay about $6 an hour. Workers show up at the company’s offices at 5:30 each morning, are served coffee and doughnuts, and wait for their assignments. They receive transportation, if needed, and report back to Labor Ready at the end of the day for their paychecks.

Employers pay for the service, Reynolds said, because Labor Ready handles the payroll, taxes, workers’ compensation insurance and all other administrative functions. “We get people who are between jobs, people who just want to work part time,” he said. “They come in and work for us when they’re available. We just require that they’re clean and sober.”

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Patrice Apodaca covers economic issues for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-5979 and at patrice.apodaca@latimes.com