Temporary Workers - Key Facts
Definition of a temporary worker
By definition a temporary worker is an individual who is employed on a temporary basis for several days, weeks or even months. The temporary worker can be employed directly by an organisation, work for a recruitment agency or alternatively, be self-employed. In most cases temporary workers are employed by recruitment agencies and clients are charged either on an hourly or daily basis for their services and invoiced either on a weekly or monthly basis.
Temporary workers can be found in every sector of the economy including: professionals (such as IT and financial staff); white-collar workers (such as receptionists, secretaries and call-centre staff), and manual workers (such as building workers, catering staff, machine operatives and packers). Sectors such as retail, hotel and catering and agriculture have seasonal peaks of activity and especially reliant on temporary workers.
According to the REC, whilst the suppliers of temporary workers usually work under the direction, control and supervision of the client, the recruitment company themselves will often brief the temporary worker on their forthcoming assignment and play some part in supervising them in their role.
The conditions and manner of employment of a temporary worker are extremely important in defining their legal status. Court cases involving temporary workers are on the rise, most of which have been brought about by a worker who has had their employment terminated. Such cases tend to be quite lengthy and are usually centred on the confusion over a workers’ employment status e.g. whilst a worker has been designated a temporary position, they may have been working in that capacity for several years.
Why be a temp worker
There are an increasing number of individuals prepared to work on a temporary basis and the reasons for this are two-fold. First, there are more self-employed people than ever before. Secondly, with more people placing value on the work/life balance, workers want to have more flexibility and control over when and where they work, and working in the temporary market enables them to do this.
According to research, the majority of temporary workers are happy with their current employment status. 69% of its associate employees indicated that they would prefer to remain in their current long-term flexible assignment rather than take on a permanent contract.
Minimum Wage
Almost everyone who legally works in the UK is entitled to receive a minimum level of pay. This is called the national minimum wage. Generally if you are legally allowed to work in the UK your employer must pay you at least the appropriate minimum wage. You can be paid more than the minimum wage but you must not be paid less. It is an important cornerstone of Government strategy aimed at providing employees with decent minimum standards and fairness in the workplace. It helps business by ensuring companies will be able to compete on the basis of quality of the goods and services they provide and not on low prices based predominantly on low rates of pay. The rates set are based on the recommendations of the independent Low Pay Commission and they change on 1st October each year. This includes home workers, agency workers, part-time workers, casual workers, pieceworkers and foreign workers. It does not matter how much experience you have.
Current National Minimum Wage rates from 1st October 2009
- Workers aged 22 and over - £5.80 per hour
- Workers aged 18-21 - £4.83 per hour
- Workers aged 16-17 - £3.57 per hour
- Accommodation offset - £4.46 per day (£31.22 per week)
- Additionally, the adult rate of the minimum wage will be extended to 21 year-old workers from October 2010
New National Minimum Wage rates from 1st October 2010
- Workers aged 21 and over - £5.80 to £5.90 per hour
- Workers aged 18-20 - £4.83 to £4.92 per hour
- Workers aged 16-17 - £3.57 to £3.64 per hour
Deductions from pay
Sometimes your employer may deduct money from your wages to pay for items such as uniforms, transport or agency fees. If your employer does make deductions for these items then your pay after the deductions must still be at least the minimum wage. The only time an employer can make a deduction from your wages which takes your pay below the minimum wage is if you live in accommodation provided by your employer. If this is the case the most your employer can take from your wages to pay for accommodation is £4.30 per day or £30.10 per week.
Proposed changes to how the National Minimum Wage is enforced
The Government is proposing changes to the National Minimum Wage (NMW) Act to create a clearer deterrent to non compliance and to provide a fairer way of dealing with arrears of NMW. The changes are being taken forward in the Employment Bill which is currently going through Parliament. Subject to parliamentary approval, the Government intends the NMW provisions to come into force on 6 April 2009.
Sick pay rights
According to the terms of The Fixed Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) (Amendment) Regulations 2008, which came in to force on 27th October 2008, all agency workers are now eligible for statutory sick pay, whether they are indirectly or directly employed and regardless of the length of their contract.
The statutory sick pay scheme has historically excluded individuals who worked under a contract of three months or less. This exclusion from qualification for statutory sick pay (SSP) was removed for fixed term employees in 2002 when employment protection was extended to that group. It was found subsequently, however, that the lifting of the exclusion for fixed term employees did not extend to agency workers.
To rectify the exclusion of short term contract agency workers from SSP the government issued new its new regulations on the 3rd July 2008.
The important aspect to note, however, is that agency workers must still meet all other qualifying criteria for SSP purposes. They must, for example, be an employee for National Insurance purposes in order to qualify and be absent from work for 3 days or more.
TAWD
The Temporary Agency Workers Directive has now been approved in Europe. According to its terms, the Directive will be implemented in the UK within the next three years.
Temporary workers are currently entitled to 24 days’ paid holiday (rising to 28 in April 2009), statutory maternity and sick pay, protection under anti-discrimination law and coverage under health and safety rules.
The TAWD provides temporary workers with additional rights. In the UK, the agreement means agency workers should receive equal treatment after they have been in a given job for 12 weeks, including rights such as basic pay, notice of termination, vocational training and the right to be notified about vacancies etc.
It does not include access to occupational pension schemes, share option schemes and employer’s sick pay arrangements.
Holiday Pay
Temporary workers are currently entitled to 24 days paid holiday (rising to 28 in April 2009).