Following yesterday’s announcement that from 2012 employees will be automatically enrolled into workplace pension schemes after three months’ employment, a specialist recruitment sector lawyer has predicted the plans could give the recruitment agency sector a boost.

One aspect of the announcement was an optional three-month waiting period before employees need to be auto-enrolled into workplace pensions.

However, workers will retain the right to ’opt-in’ to a workplace pension provision within this period, and if they do opt-in, their employer will have to make employer contributions. This waiting period will apply to all eligible jobholders, which includes permanent and temporary employees and agency workers.

For agency workers, the three-month period will coincide with the 12-week period prescribed under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010.

Kevin Barrow, a partner and recruitment sector specialist at Osborne Clarke, told Recruiter that the proposals may make it more attractive for agencies to engage agency workers.

This would be “on the basis that they are ‘employed’ under overarching contracts of employment,” says Barrow. “This overarching contract would allow a ‘once and forever’ enrolment rather than a series of enrolments at the start of each new assignment.”

Barrow adds that whether short-term workers take up the opportunity to opt-in is likely to depend on whether the final provisions will enable workers with many small pots of pension provision to easily combine these into one pension of any significance.