Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Rules Disadvantage Temporary Workers

The Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) has warned that key workers may be impacted by the ineligibility of recruitment firms to reclaim statutory sick pay (SSP) under the SSP rebate scheme.

Currently only small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with fewer than 250 employees are eligible to have SSP payments reimbursed when their workers are self-isolating or ill with coronavirus (COVID-19). Many of the recruitment companies who hire temporary key workers in the logistics, care and education sectors are SMEs, but because of the large numbers of temporary staff they often have on their payrolls to supply to hirers, they are ineligible for the rebate scheme.

The REC has argued that the risk of taking on temporary workers, whose SSP payments recruitment firms could not reclaim, means firms are becoming increasingly unwilling to offer jobs to temporary workers. It is calling on the Government to extend the SSP rebate scheme to all temporary workers.