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Your Employment Standards Rights: Temporary Help Agency Assignment Employees

This information sheet summarizes the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) rights for assignment employees of temporary help agencies. The ESA sets minimum standards in most Ontario workplaces.

You are an assignment employee of a temporary help agency if you and the agency have agreed that it will place or try to place you on temporary work assignments with a client business of the agency.

When you are on an assignment, the agency is still your employer; the client business is not. If you quit the agency or if the agency ends the employment relationship with you, you stop being an assignment employee. For more information, see Your Guide to the Employment Standards Act, 2000.

Topics included in this sheet are:

Assignment employees of a temporary help agency
Right to public holidays and public holiday pay
Right to notice of termination and severance pay
Right to notice of termination of assignment
An agency cannot charge you certain fees
Information must be provided about the agency
Information must be provided about assignments
Information must be provided about the ESA
The agency and client business must keep records
The agency and client may both be responsible for your wages

It is important to remember that an agency cannot prevent the placement business from giving you a job reference or hiring you directly. You can never be punished for asking about your EAS rights.