Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2007, published 97th ILC session (2008)

The Committee takes notes of the detailed information sent by the Government in its report and wishes to draw the Government’s attention to the following points.

Article 2, paragraph 2, of the Convention. Exclusion of certain workers from the scope of the unemployment insurance scheme. With reference to the Committee’s previous comments on the exclusion from the unemployment insurance scheme of workers employed under training contracts, the Government confirms that section 11.2(a) of the Workers’ Act establishes 21 years as the maximum age for the conclusion of such contracts. The Government also indicates that the social dialogue process for a reform of the labour market led in May 2006 to an agreement which has implications for the manner in which training contracts are regulated. The agreement provides, for example, that the maximum age is to be increased to 24 years in the case of apprentices trained under school–workshop programmes and in vocational training courses (alumnos-trabajadores a los programas de escuelas-taller y casas de oficios) and that it will be abolished for apprentices engaged under employment workshop programmes (alumnos-trabajadores a los programas de talleres de empleo) and for persons with disabilities. The Committee takes due note of this information. It points out that although the Convention allows the exclusion from unemployment benefit of young workers under a prescribed age (Article 2, paragraph 2(f)), the age must not be too high. The Convention also allows the exclusion of exceptional classes of workers in whose cases there are special features which make it unnecessary or impracticable to apply to them the unemployment protection scheme (Article 2, paragraph 2(j)). However, States that resort to the exceptions allowed by the abovementioned provisions are required in their subsequent report to provide information on the reasons for excluding the workers in question and to indicate whether these circumstances still exist and continue to warrant, for example, the existence of different age limits on the basis of type of return to work assistance programme. The agreement concluded in the course of the social dialogue process to reform the labour market, the effect of which is to increase or abolish the upper age limit for concluding training contracts for certain categories of workers, could tend to establish the existence of circumstances warranting such measures. The Committee nonetheless notes that the Government’s report contains no relevant extracts of the final report on the work done in the context of the social dialogue process that led to the agreement of May 2006 with the social partners, or the statistical information requested previously, broken down by age, on the number of young persons engaged on the basis of training contracts and the average duration of these contracts. It will be grateful if the Government would provide all the requisite information in its next report.

Part V of the report form. The Committee previously expressed its concern at the large number of unemployed with no protection and asks the Government to continue to provide detailed information on the number of beneficiaries of unemployment benefit in relation to the total number of the registered unemployed, and on any new measures taken in this respect. In the absence of any information in the Government’s last report, the Committee can only hope that such information will be sent shortly. The Committee further notes that according to the Government’s report, the number of judicial decisions on disputes concerning the payment of unemployment benefit dropped significantly between 2002 and 2005, and would be grateful if the Government would provide information on the possible reasons for this.