A Durban businesswoman is hiring out grannies. Leigh Newell has brought a popular American and Australian concept to South Africa by creating Grans for Hire, an agency that employs mature, retired women for childcare, pet-sitting, house-sitting and domestic guidance."I wanted to come up with something unique. My mother-in-law helped me a lot with my two children but, after retiring, she realised that she hadn't planned as well as she'd hoped and that extra income would be greatly appreciated."I did a bit of research and found that the U S and Australia had companies that offered work to retired women and I noticed that we didn't have anything like that in South Africa ."The response to a few newspaper adverts and Facebook posts was overwhelming, with a large number of grannies applying for work, and families from as far afield as Johannesburg asking for a gran for their home.Newell placed her first granny a month ago."The grans have been so excited about working again. Of course, money has not been streaming in for a lot of them, so extra income is welcome, but they are all fit and healthy," Newell said.After thorough background checks Newell registered 17 grans aged between 50 and 70 to work in homes from Umhlanga to Ballito."Our first gran has now been permanently employed to take care of a child."We have also had positive feedback from families who have employed grans to teach their domestic worker to cook."Hiring a granny part-time to baby sit is R60 an hour or R300 a day. Pet-sitting and house-sitting are R200 a day."Permanent candidate salaries range from R1500 for one day a week to R6000 for five days a week," Newell said...