The new Temporary Agency Workers Regulations (S.L. 452.133) (the “Regulations”) were published on June 4, 2024, and will enter into force on 1 January 2025. The Regulations seek to ensure equal treatment for temporary agency workers in Malta and will replace the current regulations.
The Regulations apply to both ‘temporary work agencies’ and newly defined ‘outsourcing agencies.’ An ‘outsourcing agency’ is defined as any natural or legal person that enters into employment relationships with employees and assigns those employees to user undertakings to work there temporarily, while retaining supervision and control of its employees during their assignment with a user undertaking. On the other hand, in the case of the traditional ‘temporary work agency’, direction and control is exercised by the user undertaking.
Workers from both types of agencies (temping and outsourcing) will be entitled to the same basic working conditions, including equal pay from the first day of their assignment, regardless of whether their contract of employment is for a fixed or indefinite term. This change removes previous exemptions that allowed discrepancies in pay for certain temporary workers.
