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Don't know where you got that information from. But temp agencies do not offer benefits to temps automatically after 3 months of working for them.
Whether they typically do and whether they are legally required to do so are two different things.
The IRS defines a full-time worker as any worker who performs an average of 30 or more hours per week for the same employer (as defined by their tax ID). FLSA then requires that full-time employees be granted certain conditions included health benefits and retirement plan enrollment. Neither the IRS nor the FLSA have any provision that defines an employee based on whether or not they report to the same job location every day, or perform the same duties, or receive the same pay. A 'temp' could be assigned to report to a different job site every day of the month but so long as they perform an average of thirty hours per week over the course of a month for the same staffing agency they are legally a full-time employee and if they continue to do so for more than three months they must be allowed to enroll in the staffing agency's health care plan and after 1,000 hours ERISA requires that they be allowed to enroll in the agency's retirement plan.
Of course, there are many agencies that do what a poster said above: they assign a temp to work a job for forty hours per week for three weeks, and then have a week of no assignment...thereby legally avoiding having their employees classified as 'full-time'. Or they may only assign them to work 25 hours per week. And FLSA only requires benefits after a certain period of time so a person who temps during their summer college breaks would not have to be offered health insurance.
Like many employers, staffing agencies frequently rely on their employees not knowing the law.
Kodaka, You are misreading the law. It does require allowing enrollment, IF the employer offers such benefits. It only requires it, in those cases, in a manner similar to COBRA..i.e. where the employer, i.e. temp agency is allowed to charge the employee the FULL cost of the benefits.
It is better than not having access to insurance, and again only if agency offers the benefit to anyone, but notice, its at full Health Insurance cost to employee.
Kodaka, You are misreading the law. It does require allowing enrollment, IF the employer offers such benefits. It only requires it, in those cases, in a manner similar to COBRA..i.e. where the employer, i.e. temp agency is allowed to charge the employee the FULL cost of the benefits.
It is better than not having access to insurance, and again only if agency offers the benefit to anyone, but notice, its at full Health Insurance cost to employee.
The words I used were that the temp must be allowed to enroll in the agency's plan. Nowhere did I state that the plan must be offered for free or even at a shared cost. I simply stated that enrollment must be allowed. So it's you who is misreading.
COBRA requires that any company with 20 or more employees to have an employee-sponsored health care plan. So I suppose in theory if OP worked for a very small staffing agency that didn't offer a plan to even their own head-office workers, then they would be exempt from offering coverage to a temp who worked more than 30 hours per week. But since COBRA counts number of employees is any one who has performed work for even an hour any time in the preceding--they don't have to be full-time--OP's agency would have to be miniscule in order to qualify for that rule.
I've seen via relatives what agencies offer. Not only is it fully employee paid, but they do not even get rates nearly as good as the average employer, especially when considering the lack of quality in their offerings.
Unfortunately, many companies employ permanent temps. It is not just the benefit costs, often it is more due to the fact adding an actual employee is about as difficult to get approved as approving a large scope bill is in the US Senate.
I've seen via relatives what agencies offer. Not only is it fully employee paid, but they do not even get rates nearly as good as the average employer, especially when considering the lack of quality in their offerings.
Unfortunately, many companies employ permanent temps. It is not just the benefit costs, often it is more due to the fact adding an actual employee is about as difficult to get approved as approving a large scope bill is in the US Senate.
Regardless, it's your earlier post that is wrong, not mine. And while having to pay 100% of the premiums isn't a very appealing plan, it's certainly better than having to get an individual policy or no insurance at all.
It does beat buying it on ones own, but quite frankly, I have known very few temps who could afford to buy the agencies offerings. Its a catch-22; they need coverage, but realistically, only employer subsidized coverage is doable, and in this era, the over-whelming percentage of temp jobs are either short-term project-oriented, or permanent temps. 5 years ago, that was not the case. As for the OP, either move on, or accept the fact this will never perm. Not saying that happily, its just a fact of life.
I appreciate all the responses and will read through them carefully. Part of my problem is that I've worked in publishing my entire working life so far - almost 28 years - so I've sort of backed myself into a very tight publishing corner. I used to live in New York where there are many publishing companies, however, there are very few where I live now. Also, I do enjoy my current assignment so I'm sort of caught between a rock and a hard place.
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say it or not but I will (and if it shouldn't be mentioned 'out loud' I'm sure a moderator will delete it) - the agency I'm working for is Spherion. I was told that next month it's going to be taken over by Ronstadt. I was also told that should prove to be a good thing since Ronstadt is alot bigger than Spherion.
Anyway, thanks again for the replies. I have alot to think about...
A lot of my husband's IT companies have had a limit of two years for a contractor.
The last company I worked for (I left as a full-time employee but initially started as a contractor) hired a lot of long-term temps/contractors for 2-year assignments. I know of a couple of cases where the people have worked longer than 2 years as contractors, and the client company kept extending their assignments 6 months at a time. The term "perma-temp" would be appropriate in their situations.
A lot of my husband's IT companies have had a limit of two years for a contractor.
These could be companies that have maximum time limits on how long someone can be a contractor before having to have a break in service.
I work for an agency as a recruiter and we have several clients who require a break in service after a certain period of time. Most of the time, it 12, 18, or 24 months and then they have to take like a 3 or 6 month break before they can go back to the same company as a contractor again.
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