 | |
Local Employment Offices (ALE) (Agences locales pour l'emploi) - Belgium
Source: Federal Government of Belgium
This measure will make it possible, through the minimex regulation, for the long-term unemployed to carry out activities that are not covered by the regular labour market, and hence will be able to attain an additional income. The balancing out between the supply of occasional employment and the demand for work takes place through administration structures created at the municipal level, called "local employment offices".
This measure is based on Articles 79 to 79ter of the Royal Decree of 25.11.1991 on the regulation of unemployment (MB of 31.12.1991).
Each district or union of districts must establish a local employment office in the form of a non-profit-making association. This association must be jointly made up, on the one hand, of members appointed by the local council corresponding to a relationship of minority and majority, and on the other hand, of members of the employers' and employees' organisations represented in the National Labour Council. The executive committee of the association must be established in the same way.
Applicants seeking to find labour for an activity which is not covered by the regular labour market request a form from the local employment office in the district in which the activity is to be carried out. The applicant then describes the nature of the activity to be carried out and can state whether an unemployed person who is ready to carry out the corresponding activity is known to him. The local employment office grants approval, provided that the activity in question is permissible. The local employment office's authorisation is valid for a maximum of one year, although this can be extended. The office further informs the applicant of the hourly rate of pay at which the unemployed person must be paid by means of cheques from the local employment office. The applicant can make use of the services of one or more unemployed persons who are in the possession of a "service form" from the local employment office. The number of hours of activity per unemployed person is limited. This time limit is not enforced for the user; however, he will no longer be able to claim tax relief for expenses which have exceeded a certain annual amount he.
The user buys local employment office cheques at the distributing company at a price which corresponds to the hourly rate of pay. At the end of the working day, the user hands over a cheque to the unemployed person for every hour of work commenced. The hourly rate of pay amounts to a minimum of BEF 200 and a maximum of BEF 300; for horticultural activities, the hourly rate of pay is fixed at BEF 250.
As long as they are not covered by the regular labour market, the following activities may be carried out: - for natural persons: - domestic help; - caring or support of ill persons or children; - help with dealing with bureaucratic formalities; - help with garden maintenance; - for local authorities: - activities that are not covered by the regular labour market, in particular in the area of environmental protection, urban safety, care of children, young people or the socially disadvantaged and occasional sociocultural activities; - for non-profit-making organisations or for educational establishments: - activities which, due to their nature or occasional character, are normally carried out by volunteers, in particular help in community, cultural, sport, charitable or humanitarian organisations; - for horticulture: - all horticultural activities are permitted with the exception of mushroom cultivation or plantations and the maintenance of parks or gardens.
However, the above list only serves as an example. Within the framework established by decrees and ordinances, the executive committees of the local employment offices determine the permitted activities on a local level while taking into account the existing regular labour market at this level.
The local authorities can, incidentally, use unemployed persons registered at the local employment office to support them in their security policy by working as helpers in the areas of prevention and security. Participation in such schemes is voluntary. This activity leads to an average 53 hours' work per month.
In order to encourage private individuals to offer activities, tax relief is provided for. Private clients enjoy a tax advantage which is calculated in accordance with the amount of local employment office cheques purchased. For this purpose, the company distributing the cheques annually provides the client concerned with a receipt which can be produced at the tax office. Tax reductions are granted for expenses up to an annual maximum amount of BEF 80,000.
Long-term unemployed persons (full-time unemployed persons with entitlement to benefit who have been in receipt of unemployment benefit or waiting allowance for at least 2 years) are registered by default as claimants at the local employment office responsible for their area of residence, except if they are exempt from the obligation to make themselves available to the job market. Any full-time unemployed person registered as being entitled to benefits and who has been in receipt of full unemployment benefit for at least 24 months in the 36 months prior to registration may register voluntarily with the local employment offices. Jobseekers in receipt of minimex benefits or social assistance may also register voluntarily with the local employment office.
On request, the officially registered person must present himself to the local employment office and must accept every reasonable activity. It must, however, be pointed out that the local employment offices will only turn to unemployed persons registered by default if no voluntarily registered unemployed persons are available.
An unemployed person may work a maximum of 45 hours per month for one or more clients. Horticultural activities are restricted to a maximum of 45 hours per month; however, it is permissible for an unemployed person involved in a horticultural activity to work 90 hours during each of two calendar months per year.
On request, an unemployed person may be exempted for an extendible period of 6 months from the obligation to remain available to the labour market and from the related obligations (e.g. the obligation to accept suitable employment or a Support Plan if offered either), if he has carried out an activity lasting at least 180 hours for a local employment office prior to submitting his application for exemption (120 hours prior to 1.1.1999). In order to calculate the unemployment periods where long-term unemployment has been interrupted (see B-iii.1), months in which the unemployed person worked at least 30 hours for a local employment office are not considered. The date of interruption of long-term unemployment is postponed for 1 month for each 90 hours that the unemployed person has worked during the last 24 months.
At the end of the working day or the activity, and at the very latest by the end of the month, the unemployed person receives a local employment office cheque for each hour of work commenced, each one equal to the applicable hourly rate of pay. At the end of the month, the unemployed person hands in the cheques to the organisation responsible for cashing them. The unemployed person continues to draw unemployment benefit at the full amount and over and above this receives an allowance of BEF 150 per local employment office cheque, which corresponds to a possible maximum additional income of BEF 6,750 per month.
The amount of the supplementary benefit which an auxiliary worker receives in the areas of prevention and security is BEF 7,950 per month.
On June 30, 1998, 552 municipalities, that is 94% of the Belgian municipalities, obtained a ALE recognized by ASBL. At the regional level, this percentage respectively accounts for 98%, 90% and 100% of the municipalities of Wallonia, Flanders and the Region of Bruxelles-Capitale.
82.6% of the people participating in ALE activities in 1997 were women, 17.4% men. In 1997, a person participated on average 26 hours per month and only 0.74% of the participants were registered as unemployed who had not declared themselves volunteers.
This measure generated 7,640,535 hours of work in 1997. This number of actual working hours equals to approximately 4,463 full-time jobs. 51.52% of the working hours consisted of domestric household assistance, 3.60% of garden maintenance, 0.99% of the accompaniment of children and patients, 0.05% of administrative formalities and 43.84% of mixed activities.
The methods of ALE recognition are flexible. Standard types are presented to the municipalities who may deviate somewhat from these, resulting in a need for the administration to systematically check the legality of the suggested modifications.
The obligatory aspect of working within the ALE framework must be relative. It is applicable only to the registered long-term completely unemployed who must be available for the labour market. This category of unemployed is called up only as a last resort, that is to say after the unemployed who carry out activities in mutual agreement with the user and after the voluntary categories. Moreover, the activity must be "a suitable activity". The suspension of the right to the unemployment benefits is temporary. Up until now, only one unemployed person has been suspended, for a four-week period, following the refusal to carry out a suitable activity within the framework of ALE.
The local employment office gives to the unemployed person who carries out services an ALE contract, which is however not a contract of employment, so that the ALE worker keeps the status of an unemployed person. This regulation was expressly adapted in order to guarantee a good protection during the exercise of ALE activities.
The ALEs must use at least one quarter of their income from ALE cheques to finance the trainig of the unemployed registered at the agency; the balance is used to cover their administrative expenses and to finance local initiatives for employment.
The multiple adaptations of the regulations have not made the system simpler.
Undeniably the ALEs allow the unemployed who would otherwise find it difficult to re-enter the labour market to acquire a new professional experience. In this sense, the measure may only be praised. The question is in fact whether certain activities carried out within the framework of ALE do not enter into competition with certain sectors of the market economy and if these unemployed will in the long term be in fact able to reintegrate themselves in the normal economy, which is in fact the goal of the programme. Like all the programmes of unemployment reduction, the ALE must therefore be limited to offer only temporary employment, to being able to easily adapt to changes in the labour market, and to provide training permitting the unemployed to improve their professional qualifications.
In the future, ALE workers will be bound by a contract of employment of unspecified duration, concluded between the worker and the ALE. It will consist of a generic contract of employment fixed by the law. The ALE contract of employment may be cancelled by either party with a notification of seven days. If the worker finds another employment, the contract of employment may be terminated without advance notification. The services within the framework of an ALE contract of employment will be exonerated from social security contributions. This contract of employment will offer to the worker a better protection; in addition, the current flexibility of the ALE system will be preserved.
[Top]