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The labour marketThe UK has an impressive track record on jobs. From the early 1990s to 2008, the number of jobs increased to record levels, raising the proportion of working-age adults in work and pushing down unemployment. The UK's success at creating jobs and helping people into work has been in large part down to a labour market that meets the needs of businesses and individuals. The key to this is labour market flexibility, a concept that has time and again proved to be in the best interest of individuals and employers.Main contacts:Guy Bailey, senior policy advisor Benjamin Digby, policy advisorAgency workingAgency working plays a vital role in the UK's labour market flexibility, providing work for over one million workers. Businesses have consistently told us how important it is to their resourcing strategies – helping them to match their resources to meet demand – and that the European agency workers directive will create a disincentive to continue using them, reducing business flexibility and increasing labour costs. Despite a long campaign against these rules, political changes made a directive inevitable in 2008. When that happened, a deal was salvaged which reduced the damage to the UK by including a so-called "qualifying period", meaning shorter assignments are not covered. There are also exemptions for things like pensions and occupational sickness and maternity pay. The government presented the UK rules that will implement the EU directive to Parliament on 21 January 2010. The directive gives agency workers the right to equal pay and working time treatment with employees once they have been with a firm for twelve weeks.Working timeWe are active in lobbying to protect the UK's opt-out of the 48 hour maximum working week, as established in the EU Working Time Directive. We recognise how important the flexibility the opt-out provides is for businesses and the value employees place on being able to choose to work additional hours, often for extra pay. Our unique presence as the premier business lobby group in London and in Brussels enables us to stay ahead of the game and ensure this important component of the UK's flexible labour market is retained. |
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