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ASA Policy Agenda 2025

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As the voice of the staffing, recruiting, and workforce solutions industry, ASA works to advance the interests of the industry through advocacy, research, education, and the promotion of high standards of legal, ethical, and professional practices.

Temporary and contract staffing is one of America’s largest service industries, employing millions of people every day and playing a significant role in the nation’s economy. The association’s advocacy activities focus on promoting the ability of staffing agencies to create jobs and serve their clients.

Like all employers, staffing agencies are subject to many labor and employment laws that protect workers, including equal employment opportunity, workplace safety, wage and hour workers’ compensation, and unemployment insurance. ASA promotes rigorous compliance with those laws and has developed certification and other education programs to help staffing professionals understand their obligations.

Because of the unique attributes of staffing, a major focus of the association’s advocacy is to ensure that labor and employment laws do not impede staffing agency operations or unnecessarily increase costs, which could reduce labor market flexibility, stifle job creation, and increase unemployment.


Employer Role of Staffing Agencies and Clients

Staffing agency employer role
With few exceptions such as physicians, registered nurse practitioners, IT workers, and others with advanced skills who work independently, a central tenet of the staffing industry is that staffing agencies are employers of the workers assigned to clients for purposes of labor, employment, and benefits laws.

Staffing agencies pay the employees’ wages and benefits and withhold and pay employment taxes; recruit, screen, and hire the employees; establish policies governing employees’ job performance; have the right to terminate or reassign employees; and retain the right to control employees’ conduct at the work site. For a comprehensive analysis of the legal treatment of staffing agencies as employers see Alden J. Bianchi and Edward A. Lenz, “The Final Code §4980H Regulations; Common Law Employees; and Offers of Coverage by Unrelated Employers,” Bloomberg BNA Tax Management Memorandum (Sept. 8, 2014).

Joint employment
Staffing agencies and clients generally share employer obligations. Staffing agencies pay the wages, benefits, and employment taxes, along with unemployment and workers’ compensation insurance. Clients supervise the employee’s work and provide a safe work site, including information, training, and equipment as required. Clients have easily managed those responsibilities and even enjoy protection from certain kinds of liability because of their co-employer status. See Stephen C. Dwyer, “Less Than Meets the Eye: Potential Liability When Using Temporary Workers,” ACC Docket (American Corporate Counsel Association, December 2013). For a comprehensive overview of the issues, see ASA Staffing Law Handbook (2023).

The legal tests for joint employment vary but whatever the standard, joint employment has been an inherent aspect of staffing agency/client relationships for decades with little consequence; in fact it has protected clients from liability in certain areas like workers’ compensation.


Workplace Safety

Employee safety is a top priority of staffing agencies. ASA maintains an ambassador-level alliance with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration to help raise staffing firm and client awareness of their respective responsibilities for temporary and contract workers. At the same time, ASA works to make OSH regulators at all levels aware of the practical constraints staffing agencies face in monitoring and controlling third-party work sites.

OSHA has developed the Temporary Worker Initiative (TWI), whose goal is to protect temporary workers from workplace hazards. With ASA’s input, TWI Bulletins include guidance and recommended practices to assist staffing agencies and clients in complying with their obligations. ASA has incorporated the guidance into its model staffing agreement, a version of which was developed specifically for construction, industrial, and other safety-sensitive industry sectors.

The model agreement addresses clients’ obligation to provide site-specific safety training and protective equipment, keep records of work-related injuries and illnesses, and obtain the staffing agency’s consent before changing a worker’s job duties. Staffing agency obligations include inquiring about worksite conditions and confirming that employees receive proper training and equipment; the agreement also gives staffing agencies the right to inspect the client’s work site and conduct post-incident inquiries.


Artificial Intelligence

Proposals to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly cover employers’ use of AI in making employment decisions. ASA urges policymakers to consider the staffing-specific uses of AI in the hiring process and ensure that any such regulation balances the rights and needs of employers, candidates, and employees.

For example, proposals regulating AI in employment commonly require that the software be audited for bias at least annually by both the developer and the employer. ASA believes that only developers or expert third parties have the knowledge and expertise to assess for bias and thus should be solely responsible for conducting audits—and employers should be permitted to rely on such audits in defense of claims arising out of their nondiscriminatory use of the software.

AI proposals covering employment also often require that employers provide job candidates with advance notice of the employer’s use of AI and other details regarding the software. ASA urges that employers be allowed to satisfy such notice requirements by posting the notice on their websites.


Immigration Reform

ASA supports immigration reform that addresses the needs of both employers and employees.

ASA believes the H-1B visa program should be reformed to meet the growing need for highly skilled workers by professional, technical, and information technology firms that cannot find enough domestic talent. Reform efforts should focus on ensuring that the program is used as intended by combatting wage violations, unfair competition, and other abuses; and promoting a merit-based “U.S. worker first” approach focused on higher-skilled and educated H-1B workers.

To ensure that workers are lawfully permitted to work in the U.S., ASA supports a national employee electronic verification program that does not charge employers fees to use the system, does not require retroactive verification of current employees, ensures that penalties are appropriate to the violation, and pre-empts state laws to ensure a uniform verification process.


Nurse Staffing Regulation

ASA supports reasonable regulations to ensure that health care personnel are properly screened and credentialed; but we oppose price controls that would arbitrarily limit what agencies can charge for their services without regard to cost increases created by spikes in patient demand or other market conditions.

ASA also opposes state reporting requirements that are ostensibly intended to promote price transparency, but which impose onerous, costly, and unnecessary administrative burdens on staffing agencies and the state. Policymakers should instead address complaints about pricing abuses on a case-by-case basis using existing state unfair trade practice laws.

Because chronic nursing shortages are a prime cause of cost pressures, ASA supports efforts to alleviate the shortage by increasing investment in nursing schools and teachers; removing state licensing barriers to allow nurses to work across state lines; and allowing more foreign nurses to work in the U.S.

A major area of concern to health care staffing agencies is the growth of online or app-based job platforms that deploy workers as independent contractors. ASA urges regulators at all levels to step up their enforcement efforts to ensure that workers are properly classified (see Gig Economy, Independent Work, and Worker Misclassification).


Mandated Leave Benefits

ASA supports policies that promote workplace flexibility. Mandated benefits, such as paid sick leave laws, can impede flexible approaches to meeting employees’ needs and increase the cost of doing business—resulting in higher prices, less demand for products and services, and fewer jobs.

Paid leave mandates impose an especially onerous burden on staffing agencies because of the need to track the hours of large numbers of employees on short-term, intermittent job assignments for purposes of leave accrual and utilization. For that reason, any such legislation should require employees to satisfy a minimum work requirement (e.g., at least 30 days) before benefits start to accrue, and at least 90 days of employment before accrued benefits can be used.


Gig Economy, Independent Work, and Worker Misclassification

“Gig Economy” refers to the use of online or app-based platforms to connect job seekers with clients for the purpose of providing short-term services, such as ridesharing and food delivery. The legal and policy issues surrounding such arrangements have mainly focused on how workers deployed through the platforms are classified—as W-2 employees or independent contractors.

For over eighty years, staffing agencies have provided millions of workers worldwide in every job category with flexibility and choice in how and when they work. As traditional W-2 employers, staffing agencies pay the employees’ wages, withhold and remit employment taxes, provide benefits, and comply with the myriad federal and state laws enacted to protect employees, like safety training and workers’ compensation insurance.

The rapid growth of online and app-based job platforms is changing the way many workers looking for flexibility and choice find and schedule jobs. Unlike traditional staffing agencies, job platforms that classify workers as independent contractors do not pay employment taxes, offer employee benefits, or face compliance with laws that protect employees, like the Fair Labor Standards Act and National Labor Relations Act.

If workers are misclassified as independent contractors, they and the clients that use them are at risk of penalties for noncompliance with the laws covering employees—and traditional staffing agencies that comply with those laws are at a competitive disadvantage because of their higher payroll and benefit costs compared to the platforms.
As the world of work evolves, ASA is committed to:

  • Protecting workers and clients and preserving a fair playing field for staffing agencies.
  • Educating workers and clients about the risks of misclassification.
  • Advocating that independent workers have basic protection, like insurance against workplace injuries, safety training, sick leave, and affordable health coverage, and
  • Clarifying classification rules so workers and clients understand their rights and obligations.

Wage and Hour

State wage notices
Federal and state wage and hour laws require employers to pay employees in a timely manner the wages promised for all hours worked. Some states have adopted so-called “wage theft” or “right to know” laws designed to ensure that employees get the wages promised. Those laws generally require employers to notify individuals of pay rates and other job-related information at the time of “hire.”

Except for completing the federal employment verification (I-9) form, however, temporary job applicants are not considered hired until an actual job offer is made. Until that time, staffing agencies cannot provide applicants with specific wage rates or other job particulars. Special provisions must therefore be made to accommodate these operational constraints. Several states have done so.

California, for example, allows staffing agencies to provide the notice in an itemized wage statement or other notice within seven days after the wage rate becomes known. New York allows employers to initially provide a reasonable range of rates individuals are likely to earn based on their qualifications and other criteria, followed by more specific information when the actual wage becomes known or is later changed. Massachusetts allows agencies to initially provide the information electronically, or verbally in person or by telephone—provided it is confirmed in writing before the end of the first pay period.

Pay transparency
Some states have “pay transparency” laws requiring employer job ads to provide job candidates with a range of wages. Staffing agencies cannot provide a meaningful range when advertising for candidates in generic job classifications to fill their applicant pools, rather than for specific positions. Massachusetts recently recognized this by requiring disclosure of pay ranges only for advertisements or job postings “for a particular and specific employment position.” New York exempted staffing agencies from its pay transparency law because they are already covered by the state’s wage notice law.


Conversion Fees

ASA opposes legislation that bars or unduly restricts staffing agencies from charging “conversion fees” when clients hire their employees permanently. Staffing agencies make major investments in advertising, recruiting, onboarding, and orienting their temporary employees, a process that can take months depending on the skills and credentials required for a position. If clients hire employees before those costs can be recovered, the staffing agency will sustain a significant financial loss. Reasonable, negotiated client conversion fees are essential to protect staffing agencies from being used as a free placement service.


Sales Taxes

ASA opposes sales taxes on temporary and contract services because of the adverse impact on jobs, wages, and the economy. Studies show that such taxes increase the cost of staffing and reduce the demand for temporary and contract labor, thus increasing the labor supply and causing average wage rates to decline. Fewer jobs and less spending have negative ripple effects throughout the economy. Consumers suffer because of the “pyramiding” effect of taxing services at various stages of production, resulting in multiple taxes on the same product or service.

Sales tax revenue, moreover, tends to be illusory because the loss of jobs causes income and other tax revenue to decline, and unemployment insurance and other social welfare costs tend to rise—largely negating the anticipated revenue. Finally, the dampening effect of the tax on jobs and overall economic activity puts sales tax states at a competitive disadvantage with neighboring nontax states.


Unemployment Insurance and the Duty to Seek Work

As employers, staffing agencies pay federal and state unemployment insurance taxes (FUTA, SUTA) to help fund a temporary source of income for individuals out of work. Because of how employer contributions are calculated, staffing agency unemployment taxes tend to be higher than those of most other service businesses because of the extremely high turnover among temporary employees.

To ensure that benefits go only to those in need, and to manage costs, state rules require individuals to seek suitable work as a condition of eligibility. Currently, 31 states have policies requiring temporary employees to contact their staffing agency for a new assignment as part of their obligation to seek work. ASA encourages all states to adopt such policies because it increases workers’ chances of finding work and gaining experience, which could lead to a permanent job.



ASA Workforce MonitorNearly half of employed U.S. job seekers (49%) believe AI tools used in job recruiting are more biased than their human counterparts. View the results & download the infographics »
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