Jobs boards have been advised to be careful about how they define themselves and their services following the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) upholding of a compliant against jobs board HalifaxJobsToday.

The ASA said HalifaxJobsToday had breached the advertiser’s code of conduct because the advertiser Johnston Press, trading as HalifaxJobsToday, did not make it clear that they are an employment agency. The ASA considered that an employment agency as defined by legislation provides information or otherwise for the purpose of finding people jobs and therefore ruled HalifaxJobsToday was an employment agency.

John Hayes, partner at national employment practice Irwin Mitchell, told Recruiter that there is a common misconception that employment agencies are involved in the direct supply of workers. “What the company will have had in mind are the activities traditionally carried out by an “employment business”.

“While the terms are often used interchangeably, it is important to make the distinction between employment or recruitment agencies and employment businesses.  Both terms are defined by section 13 of the Employment Agencies Act 1973 which provides that employment businesses are involved in the supply of workers whereas employment agencies are involved in providing services for the purpose of finding workers employment or supplying employers with workers.

“Crucially, this definition includes “the provision of information or otherwise” and so ultimately jobs board websites such as HalifaxJobsToday.co.uk will be caught within the definition of an employment agency and will need to be careful not to fall foul of the relevant advertising code.”