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The Committee notes the resolution issued on 14 April 2005 by the General Directorate of Labour to approve National Agreement III for the hotel sector (ALEH), extending the earlier agreement until 31 December 2009. It notes that the agreement contains a new chapter dealing specifically with training contracts. It further notes that like its predecessor, the new agreement envisages the possibility of incorporating new elements negotiated between the parties and that as a result of this negotiation, specific agreements continue to be signed concerning the trial period in the work contract and retirement bonuses. The Committee takes note of the list of the many collective agreements signed both at the autonomous community level and the provincial level.

Part V of the report form. Practical application. The Committee notes the statistics sent by the Government on inspections carried out in the period 2007–08 in the catering sector, and the results obtained. It notes in this connection the comments made by the Trade Union Confederation of Workers’ Commissions (CC.OO) to the effect that the catering sector warranted more thorough inspection in view of the large number of workers employed in it. The CC.OO asserts that in 2007, the sector consisted of 170,418 enterprises and 1,104,000 workers per quarter on average, many of whom are immigrant workers. Furthermore, according to a recent study conducted by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, the catering sector in Spain employs 1.2 million persons including 156,196 non-nationals, making it the sector that employs the largest number of migrant workers. The Committee therefore requests the Government to continue to provide general information on the practical effect given to the Convention, including statistics of visits carried out by the labour inspection services and their results, the number of workers in the sector covered by collective agreements, if possible broken down by gender and age, any recent studies on their conditions of work and all other available information on the policy to improve the conditions of work of the workers concerned, with special attention to immigrant workers.