Fired by the Host Company? What Labour Hire Workers Need to Understand About Unfair Dismissal Rights

Labour hire arrangements can be confusing when it comes to your employment rights—especially if you’re suddenly told you’re no longer needed at a host site. You might think you’ve been fired. But legally, your situation is more complex.

If you’re employed through a labour hire agency, it’s that agency—not the company you’re actually working for on-site—that is your official employer. That means if a host company decides to remove you from its site, your legal claim for unfair dismissal won’t be against them. Instead, any challenge would be directed at the labour hire agency that engaged you.

Here’s the catch: just being removed from a site doesn’t always mean your job has ended. If your agency still considers you employed and tries to find you another assignment, your employment may still be ongoing. But if the agency ends your contract altogether, that could amount to dismissal under the law—and your right to challenge it depends on how they handled it.

In some cases, the Fair Work Commission has sided with workers who were dropped by a client and then dismissed by the agency without any investigation or redeployment efforts. For example, a worker who was told she’d been “demobilised” by the host, but was never given a reason and had no further work offered by the agency, was found to have been unfairly dismissed.

But in other cases, the Commission has upheld a dismissal if the agency had a legitimate reason and genuinely tried to find alternate work but couldn’t. It comes down to whether the agency made a reasonable effort and followed fair procedures—not just whether the host wanted you gone.

If you’re in this situation, don’t assume you’re powerless. Even if the host controls the site, your employer has legal obligations. If they end your job just because a client said so, without doing their due diligence, you may be able to fight back under Australia’s unfair dismissal laws.