Agency Workers

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has published its guidance on the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, which come into force on 1st October 2011.

The Regulations provide that agency workers (ie temps) will have the same rights to pay, benefits, rest periods and holidays as someone recruited directly by the hirer (including the hirer's own directly recruited temp workers and employees).

There is a 12 week qualifying period, so genuine short-term agency temps will not qualify for this right. The 12 weeks do not have to be continuous; there can be breaks between assignments and absences on grounds of eg sickness or jury service.

[Thanks to Adrian Marlowe of LawSpeed for correcting an earlier draft of this bulletin]