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Temporary and leased employees — Virginia

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 number 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. As the answer to this question varies under different laws, this chapter will address the treatment of temporary and leased employees under each law separately.

Types of employees

For purposes of this chapter and unless other terms are required by the particular law under discussion, the following terms will be used to identify the various parties in the temporary employee relationship:

  • the entity that supplies employees to the workforce will be called the “supplier employer”
  • the business for whom the work is performed will be the “customer employer”