CWS 3.0: February 6, 2013

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Professional Staffing Firm Estimates Its ACA Costs

Meeting healthcare coverage requirements under U.S. healthcare reform will likely mean a small, single-digit percentage increase to the overall pay rates for the company’s temporary workers, Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE: RHI) CFO Keith Waddell said in a conference call with analysts on Jan. 30.

Employers must offer healthcare coverage to full-time workers starting in 2014 or face possible penalties.

“For our temporary employees there is a 12-month period after we first hire them, where they essentially audition to be full-time followed by a 12-month period, if once qualified, we have to … pay for coverage or pay a penalty,” Waddell said in the call.

Robert Half intends to offer coverage to those temporary workers, and the company has done a fair amount of work to figure out what those costs might be, Waddell said in the call. The company did not say during the call whether it intended to try to pass those costs on to its clients.

“They require us to estimate the percentage that will qualify as full-time, the percentage that will accept and decline coverage, what the cost of that coverage might be, as well as the number of months during that second 12-month period where they would remain an employee,” Waddell said in the call. “It is our estimate at this early time, that the increase to ... our cost would be a small single-digit percentage increase to the overall pay rates we provide.”

Robert Half focuses on professional staffing.

For more on the 12-month look-back period in the Affordable Care Act, click here.