Employers may be swapping temporary workers for permanent staff because of uncertainty over the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), a report has claimed.

However, the same report indicated that other factors may be to blame, such as competitive pressures experienced by some organisations in their sectors.

Under the Regulations, which came into force on 1 October 2011, agency workers are entitled to the same basic employment conditions as someone directly recruited by the hirer after working for the company for 12 weeks in the "same role".

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG Report on Jobs found that temporary appointments fell at the fastest rate in two-and-a-half years during March, while permanent placements continued to grow.

The report said that the shift from temporary to permanent staff may be due to the introduction of the AWR, as respondents "frequently indicated" that they had chosen to convert temporary workers into permanent employees because of the effect of the Regulations. More at personneltoday