The paper explains why they should be excluded in relation to the "Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2004" (EAA Regs) which came into effect on 6th April 2004.
According to the EAA legislation job boards can be defined as an employment business because they provide services for the purpose of 'finding persons for employment' and 'of supplying employers with persons for employment', however the AOLR argues that job boards are fundamentally different in their business model and service offering to employment agencies.
To adhere to the EAA Regs, job boards would be required to check and verify every job advertised and the identity, background and skills of every individual posting a CV - an impossible task given the huge number of jobs and CVs posted on job boards every day. As a result, if job boards are to comply with the new legislation, they will be forced to change their business models and become a typical employment agency when there is a clear market demand for an internet recruitment information service.
The AOLR, in conjunction with the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), believes that job boards should be excluded from the EAA Regs, in the same way that the placement of classified job and skills advertising in the print media is excluded. There are four principal reasons for this:
Control: Unlike employment agencies, job boards do not have a direct financial interest in the match being made between the work seeker and the hirer. Boards do not seek to control the introduction between the two parties but act solely as an information provider. In fact the job board will often have no knowledge of the existence of an application to a job at all.
Interest: Payment to job boards is for the 'probability' that a suitable candidate may be among the job board's audience the hirer is therefore incurring an upfront speculative expense that is not directly linked to an outcome. In contrast agency fees are conditional to reflect their brokerage role and require a successful placement with the hirer.
Information: Traditionally, in order to establish and retain control, employment agencies have often restricted information on candidate and employer information in the initial stages. As job boards act solely as an information provider they have not done this. However the implementation of the EAA Regs now require recruitment information to be transparent for both agencies and job boards. AOLR members are highlighting that although this requires no change to their approach, if agencies use job boards as a recruitment medium, boards will be unable to provide information on third parties i.e. the hirer or candidates.
Process: In contrast to agencies, job boards do not undertake the process of finding a new employee from start to finish, only to publish the employers' advertisement to enable any candidates to make direct contact with the hirer and to provide access to CV's for hirers to approach suitable candidates. A job board's contact with its client is limited to the posting of the advertisement and the board will have no direct contact with any candidate.
Bill Shipton, Chairman of AOLR said "There are 806 job boards in Britain and the number of UK adults who have searched for jobs online amounts to 11.1 million, so clearly there is a demand for online services. Under the current EAA Regs definitions there is a potential risk that job boards will cease to exist, as they cannot feasibly meet all legislative requirements without fundamental business remodelling. The recruitment market will lose revenue, agencies will suffer from lack of candidates, employers will be unable to fill jobs and work seekers will be unable to find new employment. The whole situation is totally unacceptable."
For further information, please contact the REC press office on 0207 618 9106.
