Healthcare Staffing Is Newest Sector For GIG Economy Expansion

Financialnewsmedia.com News Commentary

PALM BEACH, Fla., Aug. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the past few years the GIG economy has been growing in leaps and bounds. GIG workers are those who, instead of a traditional, long term full-time job with a single company, are drawn to work as short-term, temporary, or independent contractors for one or a variety of employers. A study by the American Staffing Association recently found that the majority of Americans (78%) see the gig economy as a non-traditional way to participate in the nation's workforce. It has traditionally been focused mainly on transportation (think 'UBER') and restaurant staffing, but now it is entering other areas that project even more continued growth in the sector. The GIG economy has been successful because it provided workers with greater control of their work schedule which translates into higher rates of job satisfaction. These are the exact benefits nurses want but really didn't have in any health care setting until recently. Active companies in the markets this week include ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PIXY), Kelly Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: KELYB), ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN), Slack Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:WORK), AMN Healthcare (NYSE: AMN).

A recent article in McKnight's Long-Term Care News, addressed the hand-in-glove fit for nurses to be the next sector added to the GIG economy. They said: "The traditional healthcare staffing model isn't working. It's inefficient and expensive for facilities, burning out nurses by strong-arming them into overworking, and putting patients at risk. When a facility that uses the traditional staffing model needs to fill a gap in their schedule, it results in a time-consuming game of phone tag between facilities, agencies and their agency staff. If agencies can't fill the shifts that facilities need, facility administrators and schedulers have two options - ask their own nursing staff to work overtime, or leave the gap in their schedule unfilled and risk staffing penalties. At the end of the day, facilities want to fill their shifts and nurses want to provide the best care possible, while also achieving a healthy work-life balance. However, with the traditional staffing model, neither can do that. There is overwhelming evidence that shows short-staffed, burned-out nurses negatively impacts patient care."

ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PIXY) BREAKING NEWS: ShiftPixy Announces New Alliance with US Wellness – US Wellness to immediately place 9,000 nurses on the ShiftPixy platform – ShiftPixy today announced an important nationwide alliance with US Wellness, a provider of employee wellness programs with a comprehensive suite of services designed to engage and inspire employees toward achieving their wellness goals. Through the alliance, US Wellness will immediately place 9,000 of its nurses on the ShiftPixy human capital management platform, with near-term plans expected to double that staff volume.

"From its inception, ShiftPixy was designed to be rapidly scalable for high volume, fast moving companies such as US Wellness, and we are honored to help with their critical needs by bringing their valued employees onto our sophisticated platform," said ShiftPixy Co-Founder and CEO Scott Absher. "We will be working diligently with our new partner to immediately on-board 9,000 members of the US Wellness team, followed by an expected additional 11,000 team members over the coming weeks. We couldn't be more excited to enter this important alliance and look forward to helping US Wellness achieve its vital corporate mission for years to come."

"With ShiftPixy we saw an immediate opportunity to quickly scale our team and offer valuable benefits and protections to our national clinical staff. ShiftPixy offers us the tools we've been looking for to manage our rapid growth and better connect with our field staff," said Tori Tomlinson, Founder and CEO of US Wellness. "The ability to move quickly to meet the immediate and future demands for COVID-19 testing and other support services for employers was of the utmost important to us.  ShiftPixy was the natural choice. We are enthusiastic about this partnership and what it offers to us and our national staff of clinical professionals."  Read this and more news for ShiftPixy at: https://www.financialnewsmedia.com/news-pixy/  

Other recent developments in the markets this week include:

Kelly Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: KELYB) has been doubling down on its commitment to talent in 2020, and recently announced two key executives tasked with delivering on that promise. The company named Amy Bouque as its new Chief HR Officer focused on full-time employees, and Jocelyn Lincoln as Chief Talent Officer focused on the temporary worker experience. 

"Kelly has two distinct sets of talent: the full-time employees who power our organization, and the temporary and independent workers whom we assign to clients. We're passionate about the success of both groups. Both are absolutely essential to Kelly's and our clients' growth, and both deserve a dedicated executive focused on their success," said CEO Peter Quigley. "We've always valued the CHRO role, and now the new Chief Talent Officer role confirms just how serious we are about delivering industry-leading experiences for our temporary workers." 

ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN) recently reported net losses of $1.10 per diluted share for the three months ended June 30, 2020 compared to net earnings of $2.11 per diluted share in the prior year period.  Net losses in the quarter were $64.4 million compared to net earnings of $127.3 million a year earlier.  Revenues for the second quarter were $3.7 billion, a 30% decline from the prior year period.   The current year quarter included special items consisting of goodwill and other impairment, and discrete tax items, which reduced earnings per share by $1.28. Excluding these items, adjusted earnings per diluted share was $0.18 for the period.

Financial results in the quarter were also impacted by the stronger U.S. dollar relative to foreign currencies compared to the prior year period. Earnings per share in the quarter were negatively impacted 2 cents by changes in foreign currencies compared to the prior year.  On a constant currency basis, revenues decreased 28%. Excluding the impact of the special items, on a constant currency basis, net earnings per diluted share decreased 91%.

Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter equaled $1.4 billion, representing a $300 million increase from the preceding quarter, reflecting our committed focus on collections and working capital management. With this ongoing focus, our Days Sales Outstanding improved year over year.  A $600 million revolving credit facility, which expires in 2023, remained unused during the quarter and, combined with our existing cash position, provides significant liquidity. Free cash flow was very strong at $577 million in the six months year to date, representing an increase of $428 million from the year ago period excluding CICE receivable sales in 2019.

Slack Technologies, Inc., (NYSE: WORK) recently announced that it has acquired Rimeto. Rimeto has reimagined the business directory over the last four years, much in the same way we have reimagined business communication. Rimeto's advanced profile and directory features will be integrated into Slack directly, but we will also continue to offer Rimeto as a standalone product and support their existing enterprise customers.

Rimeto is a powerful cultural tool that can help strengthen employee ties to each other and to their work. If there's one thing we've heard over and over from our customers and employees alike during the pandemic, it's that people are struggling to stay connected. We all want to understand the people we work with and have context around their lives. Employees with weak social ties to their colleagues aren't as happy or productive as employees at companies with a thriving, healthy culture. But the typical enterprise directory certainly doesn't help; it's about as valuable today as a phone book and usually less informative.

AMN Leadership Solutions, a division of AMN Healthcare (NYSE: AMN), has been named as the nation's top healthcare executive search firm by Modern Healthcare.  AMN Leadership Solutions provides clinical and nonclinical healthcare leaders, along with physicians and advanced practice clinicians, to healthcare organizations throughout the nation to help improve clinical, financial, and operational performance. In the Modern Healthcare 2020 Executive Search Firms Survey, AMN Leadership Solutions led all entrants with 1,045 placements.

"Excellence and diversity in leadership are the keys for healthcare organizations to continue to thrive during the current coronavirus crisis and in the challenging decade ahead," said Kelly Rakowski, Group President and Chief Operating Officer, Strategic Talent Solutions, at AMN Healthcare. "Our Modern Healthcare top ranking reflects the recognition that our holistic approach to leadership recruitment and development, coupled with the most extensive network of healthcare leaders, can help all organizations achieve quality patient experiences and progressive organizational outcomes."

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