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The Committee notes that the Government’s report has not been received. It hopes that a report will be supplied for examination by the Committee at its next session and that it will contain full information on the matters raised in its previous direct request, which read as follows:

Articles 1(1) and 2(1) of the Convention. Imposition of work as a condition for maintaining entitlement to unemployment benefits. The Committee has noted the information supplied by the Government in reply to the Committee’s previous direct request, including the indication, in connection with the administration of the new rules on availability of unemployed persons for reasonable work adopted under the Government’s labour market reforms of 2003, that the National Directorate of Labour will continue to monitor those cases where unemployed persons are sanctioned for refusing to accept a job placement offered by the Public Employment Service.

The Committee recalls that in its previous report the Government, in describing how the new rules are being administered, indicated that in cases where there are several possible qualified persons for a job, “the person referred will always be the best suited for the job”, and that, while by law it is possible to offer only “reasonable” work to unemployed persons whose qualifications exceed the requirements of that work, such placements “will still have to take place ‘with due consideration’ to the unemployed person, his skills and orientation towards the labour market, etc”.

The Committee requests the Government, in the course of monitoring the sanctions cases, to monitor how in such cases the criteria referred to above have been applied. As also requested in its direct request addressed to the Government in connection with its application of the Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102), the Committee would like the Government to continue to indicate in its future reports any changes in the national legislation or practice related to the conditions governing entitlement to and suspension of unemployment benefits.