Acas has published a study on the impact of the Agency Workers Regulations that they claim reveals agency workers are often unaware of their employment rights and afraid of raising workplace concerns due to fears over job security.

The paper looked at recent research around agency workers as well as employers and employees that called the Acas helpline about agency work and their headline findings were that:.

* on average, one in five calls to the helpline related to contract issues. The study's findings were similar to an analysis published last year on calls to the Acas helpline about zero hours contracts. * agency workers were unaware of their rights particularly around holiday pay, notice periods and the 12 week qualifying period when an agency worker doing the same work is entitled to have the same basic terms and conditions of employment as if they had been employed directly by the hirer; and * they were also afraid of asserting their statutory rights due to believing that there's an imbalance of power in the employment relationship.

The full report can be downloaded from the Acas site here.