Published on 30th March 2020
The global outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) poses an unprecedented, major challenge to economies and societies around the world and it has also severely impacted the private employment services industry. As the core service within the sector, agency work has been particularly hit. While in many sectors the use of agency workers has been reduced drastically due to lock-down measures (manufacturing, hospitality, construction, non-food retail), some other sectors are desperately looking for staff to meet the challenges ensuing from the crisis, such as healthcare, transports & logistics and retail.
At this stage, containing the pandemic and servicing people is the top priority for the private employment services industry. Members of the World Employment Confederation-Europe have been highly pro-active since the outbreak of the crisis, informing workers and companies on management of health and safety risks and securing equal access to support measures for agency workers (e.g. sick leave, short time work). Some of the initiatives implemented across Europe include:
The World Employment Confederation-Europe welcomes the efforts taken by the EU institutions and calls for a strong, coordinated response with the EU Member States. Read more in our statement about how we can work together to overcome the crisis and safeguard work by protecting people, the labour market and the economy.