The final regulations of the new Agency Workers Directive were finally set out last week in Parliament.

The new European directive sets out to offer temporary workers in the UK the same rights as permanent staff, if that worker has worked in the same role for longer than 12 weeks. This will primarily affect contractors that work as sole traders and or as limited companies.

Recruitment Agencies are of course at the forefront of understanding this as many employers taking on contractors from agencies will want to know what implications this new directive will have.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) in there most recent report, showed that 85% of UK businesses have heard of Agency Workers Directive. This is a huge increase of 50% 18 months ago.

It will be interesting to see how Employers take to this new directive as many would have taken on temporary staff knowing that they do not have the same rights as the permanent staff. The AWD now eliminates this freedom for Employer and could have an adverse affect on the temp market. It is something that we will need to keep a close eye on and see how the market reacts.