Nesco Resource partnered with online work platform Field Nation to expand into the online staffing marketplace. Field Nation provides a self-service web portal to find, manage and pay contractors — both 1099 or W2 employees — for specific jobs.

Nesco, based in Cleveland, ranks No. 58 in Staffing Industry Analysts’ 2012 list of largest U.S. staffing firms.

“The online staffing industry is growing at significantly faster rates than the more traditional staffing models,” said Tim McPherson, president and COO of Nesco Resource. “Nesco Resource felt the time was now to find a partner to work with in this space and to broaden the ways our clients and employees can seek new talent or new career opportunities. Field Nation is the perfect partner for us to work with in this new online staffing venture.”

The partnership allows Nesco Resource employees and applicants to access Field Nation’s portal, and will provide Field Nation clients with access to a wider range of candidates and new options for employment of their project talent. The partnership expands Field Nation further into niche staffing markets such as engineering, information technology, telecommunications, call centers and administration.

“Our own research and our far-ranging discussions with executives in both traditional and online segments of the industry suggest that we will be seeing much more of this kind of thing occurring in months and years ahead,” said Andrew Karpie, research analyst at Staffing Industry Analysts.

“Traditional staffing firms are becoming aware of the efficiency and growth opportunities that online platforms provide,” Karpie says. “Online staffing platforms — the number of which has been growing in the past few years — are coming to grips with the legal complexities of being a work arrangement intermediary and realizing that they must either ‘build their own’ compliance capabilities or partner with a business that can.”