An employment agency is a business that specializes in matching up employers looking to quickly fill a position (usually temporarily) with appropriately-skilled employees. Many such agencies maintain files of individuals who have indicated an interest in temporary employment. Some agencies also search out individuals meeting specific requirements beyond those who are already known to the agency; these are usually called recruiters or, especially if the position is permanent and involves substantial professional or management responsibility, headhunters.
Many employment agencies specialize in a particular profession or field of business, such as accounting, banking, health care, or secretarial services; this benefits both employers and potential employees by limiting the field of search. Some agencies are non-profit enterprises, but most (whether for profit or not) charge employers a percentage fee for their job placement service. The industry is therefore controversial, as some people see it as tax on the poor who are not in position to develop an able Social network.
An employment agency is often called temporary agency, and often there is a distinction between the two. Employment agencies are often contract job placement companies that find permanent jobs for someone and receive a commission after the hire. Temporary agencies specialize in finding strictly temporary jobs for a variety of tasks (usually clerically related) with the advance knowledge that the job will be short term. Sometimes a temporary agency places an employee on a long-term assignment, usually after the person has worked in their temporary position for a great length of time. The agency then receives a commission.
Typically a temporary agency has a standard set of tests to judge the competence of the secretarial or clerical skills of an applicant. An applicant is hired based on their scores on these tests, and is placed into a database. Companies or individuals looking to hire someone temporarily contact the agency and describe the skill set they are seeking. A temporary employee is then found in the database and is contacted to see if they would be interested in taking the assignment.
When a temporary employee agrees to take on an assignment, he or she receives instructions pertaining to the job. Information is provided on the correct attire to wear, hours of work, the wage to be paid, and who to report to upon arriving. If a temporary employee arrives to a job assignment and is asked to perform duties not described to him or her when accepting the job, he or she is expected to call the agency and speak with a representative. If he or she then chooses not to continue on the assignment based on these discrepancies, there is no penalization professionally.
It is up to the temporary employee to keep in constant contact with the agency when not currently working on an assignment; by letting the agency know that they are available to work they are given priority over those who may be in the agency database but have not made it clear that they are ready and willing to take an assignment. A temporary agency employee is the exclusive employee of the agency, not of the company in which they are placed. The temporary employee is bound by the rules and regulations of their direct employer, even if they contrast with those of the company in which they are placed. For example, if a temporary employee is asked by the company in which they are placed to lift a heavy box, they may respond "I am sorry, my agency does not allow me to perform that task. I wish I could help. Please feel free to contact my supervisor there for more information."
Temporary agencies usually are paid approximately twice the hourly rate of the actual payment given to the placed employee. For example, if a secretary is temporarily placed by an agency, the agency charges the company $15.00 an hour and gives $7.50 an hour to the placed employee.
Temporary employees are in a constant state of employment flux because they are never guaranteed consistent employment, nor are they assured of a solid start or finish date for their assignment. A temporary employee's assignment can be ended at any time, even in the middle of its projected time frame, without explanation. This causes potential turbulence in cases of discrimination, which is usually handled internally between the employee and the agency.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Employment Agency".