Employment agency

Organization which matches employers to employees Journalist Nellie Bly investigating employment agencies An employment agency is an organization which matches employers to employees. In developed countries, there are multiple private businesses which act as employment agencies and a publicly funded employment agency. Public employment agencies One of the oldest references to a public employment agency was in 1650, when Henry Robinson proposed an "Office of Addresses and Encounters" that would link employers to workers. The British Parliament rejected the proposal, but he himself opened such a business, which was short-lived. Called "intelligence offices", employment agencies had by the 1840s developed a seedy reputation. The moral reformer publication, "Friend of Virtue," building on this long-standing ill-fame, consistently depicted employment agents as villains in stories of young women lured to New England cities on false pretenses and tricked into lives of prostitution. In the United Kingdom, a well-regarded labour exchange was established by social reformer and employment campaigner Alsager Hay Hill in London in 1871. This was later augmented by officially sanctioned exchange