Member

My concern, and that of many of the organisations to which I have spoken across the recruitment and small business sector, is that this change risks creating a perverse incentive, encouraging an increase in sporadic but regular short-term absences, which are notoriously difficult to manage or verify, especially in sectors where workers are supplied for temporary roles at short notice. For recruitment agencies and the employers they serve, such changes impose operational and financial uncertainty. Recruitment firms already operate within narrow margins, absorbing employer liabilities under agency worker regulations. The imposition of statutory sick pay from day one would only add to those pressures without due consideration of enforceability or fraud prevention.