Holiday pay from Agencies - Be aware !

Deep_In_Debt

I'm on £14ph with the agency, and I've been temping at the same place since October and I'm earning more money than if I went perm. Not sure how much they are charging the company but my holiday pay works out at the same hourly pay.

I used to deal with agencies in my last job and the "mark up" was usually around about 12% on the hourly rate, so not massive, but then we did have "prefential rates". I'm sure holiday pay to temps was never discussed with the agencies though.

Deep_In_Debt

I'm on 10% of hours worked.

briona

Deep_In_Debt wrote: »

I'm on £14ph with the agency, and I've been temping at the same place since October and I'm earning more money than if I went perm. Not sure how much they are charging the company but my holiday pay works out at the same hourly pay.

I'm currently earning £20ph but the agency's invoice for me worked out at £31-something-or-other!!! Told you it was an odd figure! My holiday pay is a few pence more (literally – LOL!) than my hourly rate...

Deep_In_Debt

Can't work that one out at all. That is weird. I'm sure agencies can't charge companies for holiday pay. Sounds like they are being very crafty.

Ebany

Given that all the money in an agencies 'pocket' comes from the clients they are placing workers with, of course the money to pay candidate holidays comes from it. It just depends how their invoices are set out as to if it shows this as a separate figure or if it is just lumped in to an overall cost.

The agency I work for used to just show an overall figure (x hours at £y rate per hour, therefore you owe us £z) but now they break it down, showing it all the way from the candidates pay - paid this, therefore employers NI of this, holiday pay of this. Our fee on that, to make £z per hour. Either way, z wound up the same, this way just shows the full breakdown of costs - and I think in most cases it suprised clients just how little was going to us overall, rather than how much!

edit to add: the holiday pay is lumped into the hourly rate when invoicing clients, and is then held in a separate pot for candidates to claim when they wish to take it. Should they leave then it is paid to them automatically when a P45 is requested.

CCFC_80

Just to reiterate I don't believe agencies charge employers for holiday pay. That is why I am offered the same hourly rate for a job now as I was in the year 2000. The agencies have to recover their outgoings when holiday pay was introduced.
To state again, agency staff were better off financially when there was no holiday pay as hourly rates have been pushed back.

LittleVoice

Agencies certainly tell the client that they are being charged for holiday pay for the temp. I hardly think they would do that if they weren't.

CCFC_80

Ebany wrote: »

Given that all the money in an agencies 'pocket' comes from the clients they are placing workers with, of course the money to pay candidate holidays comes from it. It just depends how their invoices are set out as to if it shows this as a separate figure or if it is just lumped in to an overall cost.

The agency I work for used to just show an overall figure (x hours at £y rate per hour, therefore you owe us £z) but now they break it down, showing it all the way from the candidates pay - paid this, therefore employers NI of this, holiday pay of this. Our fee on that, to make £z per hour. Either way, z wound up the same, this way just shows the full breakdown of costs - and I think in most cases it suprised clients just how little was going to us overall, rather than how much!

edit to add: the holiday pay is lumped into the hourly rate when invoicing clients, and is then held in a separate pot for candidates to claim when they wish to take it. Should they leave then it is paid to them automatically when a P45 is requested.

Exactly this is what I am saying, if they are Billing the client an hourly rate which is inclusive to holiday pay, the agency will then push down the workers normal hourly rate to compensate - so to state again agency workers are financially no better off since holiday pay was introduced to them.

LittleVoice

The agencies I used certainly put their hourly rates up when the rate of holiday increased and gave that as the reason.

Perhaps you work in IT and were simply over-paid in earlier years until it was realised the skills weren't that special. (That's a comment about general IT rates of pay, not about you personally.)

CCFC_80

LittleVoice wrote: »

The agencies I used certainly put their hourly rates up when the rate of holiday increased and gave that as the reason.

Perhaps you work in IT and were simply over-paid in earlier years until it was realised the skills weren't that special. (That's a comment about general IT rates of pay, not about you personally.)

If this is aimed at me then no I do not work in I.T. I am currently out of work and my main line of work is administrative/office based. I am telling you that when I first used agencies in 2000 when there were a lot more jobs about there was no holiday pay and I was on about £6.00 to £7.00 per hour. Today with Holiday pay Agencies are still advertising the same line of work for the same equivalent pay levels 9 years later. I was financially better off working for agencies in 2000 with no holiday pay then I am now.