We’ve been keeping abreast of the Agency Workers Regulations since they came into force on 1st October. Despite proclamations of the world ending, the legislation hasn’t had as drastic an impact on the UK’s freelancer and contractor community as was expected.
The first enforcement period for the Agency Workers Regulations ended in late December – in theory the point at which all agency workers and temps (including contractors using umbrella companies) are entitled to the same privileges as permanent employees. However there were warnings as the end of the first enforcement period approached that many companies had still not put in place adequate measures to ensure their compliance. Those found to be in breach of the AWR are set to face fines of £5,000 per employee.
New research from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) has shown that almost a third of companies (29%) are looking to sidestep the AWR by terminating their contractor and temporary workers early, before their first twelve weeks of work has elapsed.
This is bad news for those on long-term contracts through an agency, but potentially good news for freelancers and contractors operating their own limited company, who fall outside the AWR.
APSCo’s Chief Exec Ann Swain said of the findings:
“The AWR is clearly having an impact, even at the professional end of the market. Contractors and temps in areas such as IT or banking usually earn more than permanent staff, but this is not true for all roles, particularly at the entry level, where the AWR may lead to increased costs.
“The initial 12-week qualifying period expired at the end of December, so if these concerns are even close to being accurate, we could see tens of thousands of temporary workers jettisoned onto the labour market in January.”
We recently collected all the info we could find about AWR enforcement into two “AWR so far” articles. To read more about how the AWR is both helping and hindering the UK’s temporary workers and contractor markets, see below.
Photo by Alan Levine – CC
