For a 28-year-old developer placed by a staffing agency into a fast-growing fintech startup in Tunis, the future looked bright. The role offered a gateway into Tunisia’s rapidly growing tech scene without the immediate commitment of a permanent contract, providing both flexibility for her and reduced risk for the early-stage company. Today, her position is gone.

She is one of the first, unnamed casualties of a sweeping new labour law that has led the Adecco Group, a global HR and recruitment giant, to cease its operations in Tunisia, effective October 31, 2025. The company’s departure marks the first major corporate fallout from legislation designed to protect workers but which may inadvertently stifle the agility of the nation’s tech sector.

In a press release dated August 21, Adecco confirmed its exit was a direct result of Law №16–2025, passed in May, which effectively bans subcontracting for permanent roles. After 23 years in the country, during which it facilitated employment for over 100,000 people across its four agencies, the company’s business model has been rendered unworkable overnight.

The departure raises a critical question: is this the start of a corporate exodus that could stifle one of North Africa’s most promising tech hubs?

A Landmark Law to End “Precarious Work”

The catalyst for Adecco’s decision is Law №16–2025, passed by Tunisia’s parliament in May with overwhelming support — 121 votes in favour and only four abstentions. The legislation represents a fundamental overhaul of the country’s labour market, designed to curb job insecurity.

At its core, the law establishes the permanent contract (contrat à durée indéterminée, or CDI) as the standard form of employment. The use of fixed-term contracts (contrats à durée déterminée, or CDD) is now restricted to exceptional cases like seasonal work or temporary surges in activity.

More critically for companies like Adecco and the clients they serve, the law’s second chapter places a near-total ban on subcontracting for tasks considered essential and permanent to a company’s operations. For years, critics argued that outsourcing roles to third-party firms was a loophole used to deny workers the benefits and security of direct employment.

“This is a turning point in the fight against precarious work,” a senior official from the Ministry of Social Affairs told local media, adding that it “ends a grey area that allowed long-term employment to be disguised under short-term or outsourced arrangements.”

To enforce the new rules, the government has introduced stiff penalties for non-compliant companies, including hefty fines and, crucially, the automatic recognition of a direct employment relationship between the worker and the end-client company. Violators also risk being barred from public contracts and losing tax incentives.

A Blow to Business Flexibility

While the government hails the law as a victory for workers’ rights, it dismantles a business model that has been instrumental to the growth of Tunisia’s tech and service industries. For international companies and local startups alike, outsourcing recruitment and HR to firms like Adecco provided the agility needed to scale operations up or down in response to market demand, particularly when serving clients in Europe.

This model allowed businesses to:

• Access a flexible talent pool without the long-term commitment and administrative burden of permanent hires.
• Manage fluctuating project needs common in software development, customer support, and digital marketing.
• Reduce overhead costs associated with direct employment, such as payroll management and social security contributions.

Tunisia’s new labour law effectively removes this layer of flexibility. Companies that once relied on subcontracted staff for core functions like software engineering, quality assurance, or customer support must now either hire them directly on permanent contracts or prove their roles are temporary and non-essential — a difficult threshold to meet.

“The aim is to protect workers without strangling enterprise,” a labour law expert at the University of Tunis explained. However, Adecco’s immediate exit suggests that for some business models, the new constraints are simply unworkable.

What’s Next for Tunisia’s Tech Scene?

Adecco’s departure is a clear signal that the operational landscape in Tunisia has fundamentally changed. The key question now is how the rest of the private sector, both local and international, will respond.

The government included transitional provisions to give companies time to adapt, but the path forward remains uncertain. Businesses now face a stark choice: absorb the increased cost and reduced flexibility of direct, permanent hiring, or reconsider Tunisia as a base of operations.

For Tunisia, which has positioned itself as a nearshore tech hub for Europe thanks to its skilled talent and competitive costs, the stakes are incredibly high. The law was intended to create a more stable and equitable job market. The unintended consequence may be that it pushes foreign investment and the jobs that come with it toward more flexible markets in Morocco, Egypt, or Eastern Europe.

Adecco is the first major casualty of this bold legislative experiment. The Tunisian government is betting that the long-term benefits of a secure workforce will outweigh the short-term economic disruption. The country’s tech sector, and the thousands of young Tunisians it employs, are now waiting to see if that bet pays off.