Temporary Agency Workers Regulations

2024 saw some major changes on how Malta deals with temporary agency workers, extending the scope beyond that of the Directive. The new Temporary Agency Workers Regulations were published and came into force as of the 1st of January 2025.

These Regulations apply to both ‘temporary work agencies’ and ‘outsourcing agencies’. The latter is a new concept which was not previously regulated under Maltese law.

The main change is about workers of both temporary work agencies and outsourcing agencies, who shall be afforded the same basic employment conditions as if they had been recruited directly by the user-undertaking.

Additionally, even if the temp worker were to be given equal pay, he/she would not have been entitled to receive it during the first four weeks of an assignment, if the assignment lasted fourteen weeks or longer.

Today, with the principle of equal pay applying as from the first day of the assignment with the user undertaking, these exemptions no longer apply. This, irrespective of whether the contract is indefinite or not.

These Regulations must be read in conjunction with some amendments introduced in the EIRA (Employment and Industrial Relations Act) on the same subject, as well as another new set of Regulations published in April 2024 which revised the licensing regime for recruitment companies and introduced a licensing regime for all temporary agencies and outsourcing agencies (save for some exceptions).