Agency workers

Summary

• Regulations implementing the Agency Workers Directive into UK law ensure that agency workers receive the right to the same basic working and employment conditions as those in the equivalent permanent job recruited directly by their host organisation. Their scope is summarised below.

• Agency workers supplied by a temporary work agency to a hirer, and who are under the supervision and direction of the hirer, are covered, as are those engaged by umbrella companies or supplied through intermediaries.
• The genuinely self-employed, limited company contractors and those working on managed service contracts are not be covered.

• Agency workers will need to have accrued 12 weeks service with a hirer to benefit from equal treatment.
• The 12-week qualifying period will be calculated on the basis of 12 calendar weeks. Any week during which the worker is engaged on an assignment will count, regardless of the number of days or hours worked in any particular week.

• To limit the chances for employers to circumvent the regulations, breaks between assignments in the same job will not always bring qualifying service to an end. A break will usually stop the clock running but if the agency worker starts a new assignment in the same job within 6 weeks, then the clock will restart where it left off. If the gap between assignments is more than 6 weeks then the 12-week qualifying period will ordinarily start again. There are certain circumstances where absences will ‘pause’ the qualifying clock, e.g. where an agency worker is medically certified as sick, the qualifying period restarts on their return to work (as long as this is within 28 weeks). Other events which will ‘pause’ the clock include planned/customary workplace closures, industrial action or jury service. Maternity or pregnancy-related absence (and adoption and paternity leave), on the other hand, will not affect the qualifying clock which will continue to run for the original intended duration of the assignment.

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