REC warns widened right-to-work rules will slow hiring and reward the safest candidate
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The News
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation has warned that right-to-work duties expanded from 1 October will push liability for illegal working up the labour supply chain and make recruitment slower and more risk-averse. The changes extend checks beyond direct employment to personal service contractors, subcontractors in supply chains and fee-charging online job-matching platforms, with civil fines reaching £45,000 for a first breach and £60,000 per illegal worker for repeat offences. Chief standards officer Lorraine Laryea said the rules cast the net "far wider than necessary" and risk firms favouring candidates with straightforward documentation over equally qualified applicants.
Why It Matters
This lands on talent acquisition's plate even though it reads as compliance. Liability now travels along contractual chains, so a contingent worker sourced through a supplier can become your legal problem if someone lower down cut corners. The REC's sharper point is behavioural: heavy penalties nudge recruiters toward the least-checkable candidate, which quietly works against the diversity and skills-based hiring most TA teams are trying to pursue.
Taking Action
All action is situated in your corporate context. These are starting points, not prescriptions — choose what fits.
Connect
Who to talk with in your enterprise
Speak to your procurement and legal leads about your contingent labour contracts: confirm who carries right-to-work liability at each link in your supply chain, and whether your MSP or agency agreements have been updated for the new regime. Then align with your hiring managers so screening decisions are made on evidence, not on which candidate's paperwork is simplest.
Inspect
What to take a closer look at
Map every route by which a worker reaches your organisation — permanent, agency, contractor, platform and subcontractor — and record who performs and holds the right-to-work check for each. Any route where the answer is "the supplier handles it" is now a place where liability can still reach you, and should be verified rather than assumed.
Reflect
What to think about more deeply
If the penalty for hiring the wrong person now outweighs the cost of overlooking the right one, who in your organisation is paid to defend the candidate the system is quietly nudging everyone to skip?