is it fair for agencies to take this much of a worker's pay?

"The client pays for my work. What I get is whatever's left after the agency takes its share. I don't know how that share is decided. I heard they can take around 30-50% of my monthly pay..."

Agency and contract work isn't just a government thing. Private companies use it too. IT, logistics, retail, admin, construction, catering. A staffing agency supplies the worker. The client pays the agency. The agency pays the worker.

The Agency keeps supplying you to a client, month after month. In that setup, there's no legal limit on what the agency can hold back. It bills the client one rate, pays you another, and keeps the difference as its "management fee."

Contract workers often don't get medical insurance either. Skipping it saves the agency a bit more.

The question isn't really whether this is legal. It is. The question is whether it's fair. A worker does the job. The client pays for that job. Somewhere in between, a large slice goes to a company that didn't do the work, and the worker never gets to see how big that slice is.

Where's the line between a fair fee for arranging work and simply taking a cut because you can? When a worker keeps only half of what their labour is worth, and can't even find out why, it's worth asking who this arrangement is really built to serve.