Commercial temporary agency work (TAW) is one of the most rapidly expanding forms of employment in Germany. The number of temporary agency staff has tripled in the last ten years alone, despite the general economic stagnation, reaching 340 000 in 2001. Hence the importance of temporary work for employment policy has also grown. This is evident from the gradual dismantling of the regulations in the Law on Staff Leasing during the 1990s, which covers this segment of the labour market. The present peak of that development came on 15 November 2002, when the Federal Parliament passed the first legislation package to reform the labour market. Following the proposals put forward by the Hartz Commission the package allows so-called personnel service agencies (PSAs) to be set up by the federal labour office throughout Germany. The Staff Leasing Law has been further relaxed considerably.
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