Several anecdotes and a number of channel checks by others over...

Several anecdotes and a number of channel checks by others over the past 6 months were indicating a bit of a land grab for qualified and experienced pathology staff, which were in short-supply.

I suspect this is a primary reason for the sloppy operating margin performance in the half. And the margin impact is twofold: the obvious part, higher costs, but staff shortages results in capacity under-utlilisation and reduced ability to fractionalise fixed costs due to the foregone revenue.


Perhaps the following table reflects your comments ("Labour and related costs" is a line in their statutory accounts)



.Relational labour costs remained steady through until the start of COVID, then reduced due to the efficiencies of scale together with the increased fee rates received for the COVID stuff.
But from the first half of 2023 through until this latest report, the relative costs have steadily increased.
The results just released would look so much better if the related labour costs had remained at 46%.
I'm not suggesting that Sonic's performance is necessarily poor in this area, but the current climate seems to make it difficult for the Medical fraternity at large to constrain their professional costs.