The Implementation of the Directive on Temporary Agency Work in the UK: A Missed Opportunity

Abstract

Agency work is more prevalent in the UK than in most other European countries. Agency workers make up around 5% of the total UK workforce, compared to 2.5% in the Netherlands, just over 2% in France, and less than 0.5% in Denmark.¹ This may, in part at least, reflect the fact that the UK has not traditionally regulated the use of agency work to any great extent. The Directive on Temporary Agency Work requires the UK to offer a greater degree of protection to agency workers, but as this article will seek to demonstrate, agency workers will remain vulnerable in certain important respects even after the Directive has been implemented.²

This article will give a brief account of the emergence of the Directive and of English law's current position on agency work, before exploring in some detail a selection of key issues arising out of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, the UK's implementation measure.³