THE new Gordon Brown Government must stand firm against renewed EU and union pressure to resurrect the draft Agency Workers Directive, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) will warn today.

The UK's biggest employers' organisation, and recruitment specialist Pertemps, have published a survey showing that up to 250,000 placements would be jeopardised by the directive as drafted.

The directive gives temporary agency workers the same working conditions as those on permanent contracts of employment.

Once a qualifying period has been served, temporary staff will be entitled to the same treatment as permanent staff in pay, holiday, benefits and allowances.

But the CBI has warned that putting agency workers on an equal footing with permanent staff would heavily reduce the key benefit of flexibility that such workers offer to companies.

The 2007 CBI/Pertemps annual employment trends survey of more than 500 firms, which between them employ about 1.1 million staff, finds that at any one time, three per cent of employees in the workplace are temporary.

Fifty-eight per cent of employers said that such a law would lead to a "significant" reduction in the use of such temporary workers, putting 252,000 placements at risk.

CBI deputy director general John Cridland said: "Use of temporary agency staff is vital for employers seeking to manage surges in demand.

"At the same time, these jobs offer quality work to people who actively choose a form of employment that allows them to balance responsibilities or pursue other interests.

"Many are women returning to employment after having a family or young people for whom this is a first essential step into further employment.

"But this important section of the workforce has an uncertain future if the Government caves in to pressure for a new EU law.

"Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be put at risk unless Gordon Brown rejects it outright, or at least insists on a qualifying period of a year before full employment rights apply to a temporary post.

"As proposed, the directive would seriously undermine the flexibility that temps offer to firms, hurting the economy and making them far more likely to rely on overtime flexibility from existing workers instead."