Jobs should remain the Governmentís priority in negotiations on agency work legislation

The Employment Ministers of Europe are due to meet on December 5th to discuss the proposed temporary agency workers directive. This dossier has been in negotiations for over five years but has not been formally discussed since 2004.

In advance of these negotiations, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), the trade body for employment agencies in the UK, is calling on all Governments to ensure that any agreement does not risk job creation.

Commenting on the negotiations, Tom Hadley, the RECís Director of External Relations, said: ìIt is vital that any agreement does not result in a reduction in the number of temporary jobs in the UK. The recruitment industry places 1.3million people into work every week.

ìThis is a vital contribution to both employers and workers. Employers can bring in the extra resource at short notice when it is needed, for example during peaks in production. Meanwhile over a third of temporary workers choose to work through agencies as it offers them the flexibility in their working life they require. Others use temporary work as a route into employment or a bridge between more permanent positions.î

The central proposition in the directive is that agency workers should be entitled to the same pay and basic working conditions as a person who would have been recruited directly into the position.


On this, Tom Hadley said: ìThe REC sees the raising of standards in the recruitment industry as central to its role and provides a number of services to its members to ensure that they treat all temporary workers with the respect they deserve. It is not in the interests of recruitment agencies to treat agency workers badly, as without them they would not have a business.î

ìHowever the current provisions on equal treatment would create many difficulties in practice. Recruitment agencies often make placements within hours of being notified of an assignment, the necessity of identifying a comparable pay rate would add more bureaucracy into the process and slow this process up.

ìAnother key concern is that a right to equal treatment would also come with an attached risk, to both agencies and their clients. If a worker disputes their salary or treatment they would have to enforce this in an employment tribunal. This additional risk may result in employers using provisions, such as overtime, to meet peaks in demand, thus reducing job opportunities for new entrants into the labour market.î

Research released this week from Eurociett, the European Confederation of Private Recruitment Agencies shows that 2.1 million jobs could be created across Europe by 2012 if certain restrictions were removed from the private recruitment market. The job creation opportunities of the temporary work industry should not be under estimated.