After a few hectic years, the global regulatory landscape appears to be stabilising for the staffing industry as 2023 ends, according to the Staffing Executive Regulatory Outlook report by the World Employment Confederation, the global body representing the staffing industry. Half of the staffing executives surveyed by the WEC believe the situation will remain neutral as they look ahead to 2024.

Globally, the overall regulatory outlook is positive in five countries. The WEC pointed to examples including Estonia, where calls for the government to address environmental, social, and governance sustainability issues are welcomed, and there is hope for an increase in oversight of unethical competition, though official resources remain scarce; and Italy, where positive regulatory change concerns the training of migrant workers abroad before arriving in Italy and the possible role that agencies may play to help close the labour shortage gap.

However, the impact of regulation changes is expected to be overall negative in seven countries.

WEC noted that the most concerning situations are in Belgium, linked to ongoing collective bargaining negotiations across sectors and national intervention to block solicitation fees charged to user companies for offering contracts to agency workers; Romania, where the sector faces a series of regulatory measures including a ban on employing Ukrainian citizens; Australia, because of a wide-ranging legislative proposal covering equal pay for agency workers and limits placed on casual work to address wage theft; as well as Chile, due to changes to minimum wage, working hours, and mandated daycares.

Other findings from the report include:

• Of the countries surveyed, 82% require some form of government registration or licensing, while 85% require periodic reporting from employment agencies, especially on the number of agency workers assigned. In addition, 56% of the countries surveyed require an objective justification for the deployment of temporary staffing firm workers, such as a temporary replacement or a temporary increase of activities.
• Nearly three-quarters of countries studied, 74%, have legally recognized the temp staffing work contract. Other countries allow agency work, but no specific employment relationship for it has been recognized in law.
• In 76% of countries, there exists some form of social dialogue between the agency work sector and trade unions. Nearly half of surveyed countries, especially but not exclusively in Europe, 46%, engage in sectoral collective bargaining.