There has been dramatic growth in recent years in the use of temporary and leased employees. Those workers, sometimes referred to as “contingent employees,” are often employed by an employment services company or temporary employment firm and are supplied to another employer for whom the workers provide their services. The increasing numbers of contingent employees raises many important legal issues. Often, the essential question is whether employers must, under federal and state labor and employment laws, treat contingent employees in their workplaces as though they were regular employees.
The term “contingent employment” is a catchall term generally used to refer to all types of employment in which the employee is not a traditional or regular employee. The categories that comprise contingent employees include what often are called temporary employees, leased employees, loaned employees, part-time employees, seasonal employees, involuntarily self-employed workers, and casual employees.