Convention concerning the Organisation of the Employment Service (Note: Date
of coming into force: 10:08:1950.)
Convention: C088
Place:(San Francisco)
Session of the Conference:31
Date of adoption:09:07:1948 See the ratifications for this Convention
The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation,
Having been convened at San Francisco by the Governing Body of the
International Labour Office, and having met in its Thirty-first Session on 17
June 1948, and
Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals concerning the
organisation of the employment service, which is included in the fourth item on
the agenda of the session, and
Having determined that these proposals shall take the form of an
international Convention,
adopts this ninth day of July of the year one thousand nine hundred and
forty-eight the following Convention, which may be cited as the Employment
Service Convention, 1948:
Article 1
Each Member of the International Labour Organisation for which this
Convention is in force shall maintain or ensure the maintenance of a free
public employment service.
The essential duty of the employment service shall be to ensure, in
co-operation where necessary with other public and private bodies concerned,
the best possible organisation of the employment market as an integral part
of the national programme for the achievement and maintenance of full
employment and the development and use of productive resources.
Article 2
The employment service shall consist of a national system of employment
offices under the direction of a national authority.
Article 3
The system shall comprise a network of local and, where appropriate,
regional offices, sufficient in number to serve each geographical area of
the country and conveniently located for employers and workers.
The organisation of the network shall:
be reviewed
whenever significant changes occur in the distribution of economic
activity and of the working population, and
whenever the competent authority considers a review desirable to
assess the experience gained during a period of experimental
operation; and
be revised whenever such review shows revision to be necessary.
Article 4
Suitable arrangements shall be made through advisory committees for the
co-operation of representatives of employers and workers in the organisation
and operation of the employment service and in the development of employment
service policy.
These arrangements shall provide for one or more national advisory
committees and where necessary for regional and local committees.
The representatives of employers and workers on these committees shall be
appointed in equal numbers after consultation with representative
organisations of employers and workers, where such organisations exist.
Article 5
The general policy of the employment service in regard to referral of workers
to available employment shall be developed after consultation of representatives
of employers and workers through the advisory committees provided for in Article
4.
Article 6
The employment service shall be so organised as to ensure effective
recruitment and placement, and for this purpose shall:
assist workers to find suitable employment and assist employers to find
suitable workers, and more particularly shall, in accordance with rules
framed on a national basis--
register applicants for employment, take note of their occupational
qualifications, experience and desires, interview them for employment,
evaluate if necessary their physical and vocational capacity, and assist
them where appropriate to obtain vocational guidance or vocational
training or retraining,
obtain from employers precise information on vacancies notified by
them to the service and the requirements to be met by the workers whom
they are seeking,
refer to available employment applicants with suitable skills and
physical capacity,
refer applicants and vacancies from one employment office to another,
in cases in which the applicants cannot be suitably placed or the
vacancies suitably filled by the original office or in which other
circumstances warrant such action;
take appropriate measures to
facilitate occupational mobility with a view to adjusting the supply
of labour to employment opportunities in the various occupations,
facilitate geographical mobility with a view to assisting the movement
of workers to areas with suitable employment opportunities,
facilitate temporary transfers of workers from one area to another as
a means of meeting temporary local maladjustments in the supply of or
the demand for workers,
facilitate any movement of workers from one country to another which
may have been approved by the governments concerned;
collect and analyse, in co-operation where appropriate with other
authorities and with management and trade unions, the fullest available
information on the situation of the employment market and its probable
evolution, both in the country as a whole and in the different industries,
occupations and areas, and make such information available systematically
and promptly to the public authorities, the employers' and workers'
organisations concerned, and the general public;
co-operate in the administration of unemployment insurance and assistance
and of other measures for the relief of the unemployed; and
assist, as necessary, other public and private bodies in social and
economic planning calculated to ensure a favourable employment situation.
Article 7
Measures shall be taken:
to facilitate within the various employment offices specialisation by
occupations and by industries, such as agriculture and any other branch of
activity in which such specialisation may be useful; and
to meet adequately the needs of particular categories of applicants for
employment, such as disabled persons.
Article 8
Special arrangements for juveniles shall be initiated and developed within
the framework of the employment and vocational guidance services.
Article 9
The staff of the employment service shall be composed of public officials
whose status and conditions of service are such that they are independent of
changes of government and of improper external influences and, subject to
the needs of the service, are assured of stability of employment.
Subject to any conditions for recruitment to the public service which may
be prescribed by national laws or regulations, the staff of the employment
service shall be recruited with sole regard to their qualifications for the
performance of their duties.
The means of ascertaining such qualifications shall be determined by the
competent authority.
The staff of the employment service shall be adequately trained for the
performance of their duties.
Article 10
The employment service and other public authorities where appropriate shall,
in co-operation with employers' and workers' organisations and other interested
bodies, take all possible measures to encourage full use of employment service
facilities by employers and workers on a voluntary basis.
Article 11
The competent authorities shall take the necessary measures to secure
effective co-operation between the public employment service and private
employment agencies not conducted with a view to profit.
Article 12
In the case of a Member the territory of which includes large areas where,
by reason of the sparseness of the population or the stage of development of
the area, the competent authority considers it impracticable to enforce the
provisions of this Convention, the authority may exempt such areas from the
application of this Convention either generally or with such exceptions in
respect of particular undertakings or occupations as it thinks fit.
Each Member shall indicate in its first annual report upon the application
of this Convention submitted under Article 22 of the Constitution of the
International Labour Organisation any areas in respect of which it proposes
to have recourse to the provisions of the present Article and shall give the
reasons for which it proposes to have recourse thereto; no Member shall,
after the date of its first annual report, have recourse to the provisions
of the present Article except in respect of areas so indicated.
Each Member having recourse to the provisions of the present Article shall
indicate in subsequent annual reports any areas in respect of which it
renounces the right to have recourse to the provisions of the present
Article.
Article 13
1. In respect of the territories referred to in Article 35 of the
Constitution of the International Labour Organisation as amended by the
Constitution of the International Labour Organisation Instrument of
Amendment 1946, other than the territories referred to in paragraphs 4 and 5
of the said Article as so amended, each Member of the Organisation which
ratifies this Convention shall communicate to the Director-General of the
International Labour Office as soon as possible after ratification a
declaration stating:
the territories in respect of which it undertakes that the provisions
of the Convention shall be applied without modification;
the territories in respect of which it undertakes that the provisions
of the Convention shall be applied subject to modifications, together
with details of the said modifications;
the territories in respect of which the Convention is inapplicable and
in such cases the grounds on which it is inapplicable;
the territories in respect of which it reserves its decision.
The undertakings referred to in subparagraphs (a) and (b) of paragraph 1
of this Article shall be deemed to be an integral part of the ratification
and shall have the force of ratification.
Any Member may at any time by a subsequent declaration cancel in whole or
in part any reservations made in its original declaration in virtue of
subparagraphs (b), (c) or (d) of paragraph 1 of this Article.
Any Member may, at any time at which the Convention is subject to
denunciation in accordance with the provisions of Article 16, communicate to
the Director-General a declaration modifying in any other respect the terms
of any former declaration and stating the present position in respect of
such territories as it may specify.
Article 14
Where the subject matter of this Convention is within the self-governing
powers of any non-metropolitan territory, the Member responsible for the
international relations of that territory may, in agreement with the
government of the territory, communicate to the Director-General of the
International Labour Office a declaration accepting on behalf of the
territory the obligations of this Convention.
A declaration accepting the obligations of this Convention may be
communicated to the Director-General of the International Labour Office:
by two or more Members of the Organisation in respect of any territory
which is under their joint authority; or
by any international authority responsible for the administration of
any territory, in virtue of the Charter of the United Nations or
otherwise, in respect of any such territory.
Declarations communicated to the Director-General of the International
Labour Office in accordance with the preceding paragraphs of this Article
shall indicate whether the provisions of the Convention will be applied in
the territory concerned without modification or subject to modifications;
when the declaration indicates that the provisions of the Convention will be
applied subject to modifications, it shall give details of the said
modifications.
The Member, Members or international authority concerned may at any time
by a subsequent declaration renounce in whole or in part the right to have
recourse to any modification indicated in any former declaration.
The Member, Members or international authority concerned may, at any time
at which this Convention is subject to denunciation in accordance with the
provisions of Article 17, communicate to the Director-General a declaration
modifying in any other respect the terms of any former declaration and
stating the present position in respect of the application of the
Convention.
Article 15
The formal ratifications of this Convention shall be communicated to the
Director-General of the International Labour Office for registration.
Article 16
This Convention shall be binding only upon those Members of the
International Labour Organisation whose ratifications have been registered
with the Director-General.
It shall come into force twelve months after the date on which the
ratifications of two Members have been registered with the Director-General.
Thereafter, this Convention shall come into force for any Member twelve
months after the date on which its ratifications has been registered.
Article 17
A Member which has ratified this Convention may denounce it after the
expiration of ten years from the date on which the Convention first comes
into force, by an act communicated to the Director-General of the
International Labour Office for registration. Such denunciation shall not
take effect until one year after the date on which it is registered.
Each Member which has ratified this Convention and which does not, within
the year following the expiration of the period of ten years mentioned in
the preceding paragraph, exercise the right of denunciation provided for in
this Article, will be bound for another period of ten years and, thereafter,
may denounce this Convention at the expiration of each period of ten years
under the terms provided for in this Article.
Article 18
The Director-General of the International Labour Office shall notify all
Members of the International Labour Organisation of the registration of all
ratifications, declarations and denunciations communicated to him by the
Members of the Organisation.
When notifying the Members of the Organisation of the registration of the
second ratification communicated to him, the Director-General shall draw the
attention of the Members of the Organisation to the date upon which the
Convention will come into force.
Article 19
The Director-General of the International Labour Office shall communicate to
the Secretary-General of the United Nations for registration in accordance with
Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations full particulars of all
ratifications, declarations and acts of denunciation registered by him in
accordance with the provisions of the preceding Articles.
Article 20
At such times as it may consider necessary the Governing Body of the
International Labour Office shall present to the General Conference a report on
the working of this Convention and shall examine the desirability of placing on
the agenda of the Conference the question of its revision in whole or in part.
Article 21
Should the Conference adopt a new Convention revising this Convention in
whole or in part, then, unless the new Convention otherwise provides:
the ratification by a Member of the new revising Convention shall ipso
jure involve the immediate denunciation of this Convention,
notwithstanding the provisions of Article 17 above, if and when the new
revising Convention shall have come into force;
as from the date when the new revising Convention comes into force
this Convention shall cease to be open to ratification by the Members.
This Convention shall in any case remain in force in its actual form and
content for those Members which have ratified it but have not ratified the
revising Convention.
Article 22
The English and French versions of the text of this Convention are equally
authoritative.
