Recruitment industry warns TUC Congress that Agency Workers Directive could lead to greater offshoring
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), the industry body representing the UKís recruitment sector, today urged the TUC Congress to review its support for the proposed EU Agency Workers Directive which risks devastating the UKís flexible labour market. The TUC has been one of the Directiveís most prominent supporters and Congress is due to debate agency workers and rights in the workplace later today.
The REC is concerned that the Directive in its current form would make it significantly more expensive for businesses to employ temporary workers, which in turn is likely to send thousands of UK jobs overseas. Companies using call centres, which typically employ a large proportion of temporary staff, are the most likely to increase offshoring to low labour cost countries such as India and China if the Directive comes into force.
The current draft of the Directive entitles temporary workers to the same employment conditions and pay as permanent employees after only six weeks of starting work. Treating temps as hypothetical permanent staff would create a huge amount of additional bureaucracy for both employers and agencies. This in turn would defeat the object of taking on temporary workers and would have a substantial impact on job seekers as well as on business.
The impact of the Directive would be substantial as it is currently estimated that there are over one million temps registered to work on any given day in the UK. In a recent REC survey, only 46% of temporary workers said that they would prefer to be working as permanent staff.
Commenting ahead of the TUC Congress, Gareth Osborne, Managing Director of the REC said:
ìThe unions have been strongly criticising UK businesses for offshoring jobs overseas, yet the Agency Workers Directive in its current form is likely to increase levels of offshoring even further. While weíre not opposed to the overall aims of the Directive, we must ensure that any proposed solution is workable and does not damage the UK recruitment industry.î
For further information, please contact the REC press office on 020 7618 9106
Agency Workers Directive could lead to greater offshoring
The REC today urged the TUC Congress to review its support for the proposed EU Agency Workers Directive