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1. The Committee notes the Government's report received in January 1995. The Government indicates that the labour market has been gradually modernizing at a slow but steady pace which is reflected positively in the reduction of self-employed workers and an increase in the number of wage-earners. The national level of unemployment is relatively low but underemployment affects some 48 per cent of the labour force and constitutes "the main problem on the labour market". The reasons for underemployment are demographic and economic, since the economic infrastructure of the formal sector cannot satisfy job demands adequately and the informal sector serves as a refuge for a large percentage of the labour force. Since underemployment has a greater effect on workers in the rural sector, the Government's efforts are concentrated in this area. An economic and social development programme for 1994-98 has the target of creating jobs in more productive activities, increasing productivity and income in backward activities (small urban businesses and micro-businesses and small rural producers), and the broadening of the job security network. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would specify in its next report if there have been particular difficulties in reaching the employment objectives set out in this programme and indicate to what extent these difficulties have been overcome. It would greatly appreciate information on the situation, level and trends in employment, unemployment and underemployment in the country as a whole and on the extent to which it affects particular categories of workers such as women, young people, indigenous people and rural workers who have difficulty in finding lasting employment and how those workers are affected by industrial restructuring processes.

2. With reference to the comments its has been making for several years, the Committee notes that information has been included in the report on a policy of dialogue and consultation promoted by the Ministry of Justice and Labour. A tripartite negotiating board has been set up whose central themes are wages, the formulation and proposal of employment programmes, and social security. The Committee welcomes this progress in the application of Article 3 of the Convention which lays down that representatives of the persons affected shall be consulted concerning the measures to be taken to promote the objectives of full, productive and freely chosen employment. It would be particularly useful for a labour market such as that described by the Government that the consultations required under the Convention should also take place with representatives of workers from the informal and rural sectors and that their participation might be envisaged in the formal consultation machinery mentioned in the report. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would include indications on any new progress made in this matter.

3. In reply to previous comments, the Government states that its prime objective is the development of human resources through training and improvement of employment opportunities. Workers are offered free vocational guidance and training services by the National Employment Service, the Programme of Associated Young Persons Enterprises and the National Service for Vocational Promotion. The Government states that these efforts claim not only to coordinate occupational training policies and activities with real employment prospects but also to ensure that young people in particular and workers in general achieve effective integration into the labour market with a lasting job and/or full productive activity where they can develop to the maximum their potential, as required in Convention No. 122, Convention No. 142 and Recommendation No. 150 on the development of human resources, 1975. The Committee requests the Government to continue supplying information on specific developments in the activities mentioned above in order to ensure that workers who have benefited from the programmes can access the labour market and find lasting employment.

4. In a direct request, the Committee is asking the Government certain questions on other aspects of the application of the Convention related to compilation and analysis of statistics, rural employment and employment in the informal sector.