The General Conference of the International Labour
Organisation,
Having been convened at Geneva by the Governing Body of the
International Labour Office, and having met in its Forty-eighth Session on 17
June 1964, and
Considering that the Declaration of Philadelphia recognises
the solemn obligation of the International Labour Organisation to further among
the nations of the world programmes which will achieve full employment and the
raising of standards of living, and that the Preamble to the Constitution of the
International Labour Organisation provides for the prevention of unemployment
and the provision of an adequate living wage, and
Considering further that under the terms of the Declaration
of Philadelphia it is the responsibility of the International Labour
Organisation to examine and consider the bearing of economic and financial
policies upon employment policy in the light of the fundamental objective that
all human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue
both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of
freedom and dignity, of economic security and equal opportunity, and
Considering that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
provides that everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to
just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment,
and
Noting the terms of existing international labour
Conventions and Recommendations of direct relevance to employment policy, and in
particular of the Employment Service Convention and Recommendation, 1948, the
Vocational Guidance Recommendation, 1949, the Vocational Training
Recommendation, 1962, and the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation)
Convention and Recommendation, 1958, and
Considering that these instruments should be placed in the
wider framework of an international programme for economic expansion on the
basis of full, productive and freely chosen employment, and
Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals with
regard to employment policy, which are included in the eighth item on the agenda
of the session, and
Having determined that these proposals shall take the form
of a Recommendation,
adopts this ninth day of July of the year one thousand nine
hundred and sixty-four, the following Recommendation, which may be cited as the
Employment Policy Recommendation, 1964:
With a view to stimulating economic growth and
development, raising levels of living, meeting manpower requirements and
overcoming unemployment and underemployment, each Member should declare
and pursue, as a major goal, an active policy designed to promote full,
productive and freely chosen employment.
The said policy should aim at ensuring that:
there is work for all who are available for and
seeking work;
such work is as productive as possible;
there is freedom of choice of employment and the
fullest possible opportunity for each worker to qualify for, and to
use his skills and endowments in, a job for which he is well suited,
irrespective of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion,
national extraction or social origin.
The said policy should take due account of the stage
and level of economic development and the mutual relationships between
employment objectives and other economic and social objectives, and
should be pursued by methods that are appropriate to national conditions
and practice.
The aims of employment policy should be clearly and
publicly defined, wherever possible in the form of quantitative targets for
economic growth and employment.
Representatives of employers and workers and their
organisations should be consulted in formulating policies for the
development and use of human capacities, and their co-operation should be
sought in the implementation of such policies, in the spirit of the
Consultation (Industrial and National Levels) Recommendation, 1960.
Employment policy should be based on analytical
studies of the present and future size and distribution of the labour
force, employment, unemployment and underemployment.
Adequate resources should be devoted to the
collection of statistical data, to the preparation of analytical studies
and to the distribution of the results.
Each Member should recognise the importance of
building up the means of production and developing human capacities
fully, for example through education, vocational guidance and training,
health services and housing, and should seek and maintain an appropriate
balance in expenditure for these different purposes.
Each Member should take the necessary measures to
assist workers, including young people and other new entrants to the
labour force, in finding suitable and productive employment and in
adapting themselves to the changing needs of the economy.
In the application of this Paragraph particular
account should be taken of the Vocational Guidance Recommendation, 1949,
the Vocational Training Recommendation, 1962, and the Employment Service
Convention and Recommendation, 1948.
Employment policy should be co-ordinated with, and
carried out within the framework of, over-all economic and social
policy, including economic planning or programming in countries where
these are used as instruments of policy.
Each Member should, in consultation with and having
regard to the autonomy and responsibility in certain of the areas
concerned of employers and workers and their organisations, examine the
relationship between measures of employment policy and other major
decisions in the sphere of economic and social policy, with a view to
making them mutually reinforcing.
Where there are persons available for and seeking
work for whom work is not expected to be available in a reasonably short
time, the government should examine and explain in a public statement
how their needs will be met.
Each Member should, to the fullest extent permitted
by its available resources and level of economic development, adopt
measures taking account of international standards in the field of
social security and of Paragraph 5 of this Recommendation to help
unemployed and underemployed persons during all periods of unemployment
to meet their basic needs and those of their dependants and to adapt
themselves to opportunities for further useful employment.
III. General and Selective Measures of
Employment Policy
Employment problems attributable to fluctuations in
economic activity, to structural changes and especially to an inadequate
level of activity should be dealt with by means of--
general measures of economic policy; and
selective measures directly connected with the
employment of individual workers or categories of workers.
The choice of appropriate measures and their timing
should be based on careful study of the causes of unemployment with a view
to distinguishing the different types.
General economic measures should be designed to promote a
continuously expanding economy possessing a reasonable degree of stability,
which provides the best environment for the success of selective measures of
employment policy.
Measures of a short-term character should be planned
and taken to prevent the emergence of general unemployment or
underemployment associated with an inadequate level of economic
activity, as well as to counterbalance inflationary pressure associated
with a lack of balance in the employment market. At times when these
conditions are present or threaten to appear, action should be taken to
increase or, where appropriate, to reduce private consumption, private
investment and/or government current or investment expenditure.
In view of the importance of the timing of
counter-measures, whether against recession, inflation or other
imbalances, governments should, in accordance with national
constitutional law, be vested with powers permitting such measures to be
introduced or varied at short notice.
Measures should be planned and taken to even out seasonal
fluctuations in employment. In particular, appropriate action should be
taken to spread the demand for the products and services of workers in
seasonal occupations more evenly throughout the year or to create
complementary jobs for such workers.
Measures should be planned and taken to prevent the
emergence and growth of unemployment or underemployment resulting from
structural changes, and to promote and facilitate the adaptation of
production and employment to such changes.
For the purpose of this Recommendation the term structural
change means long-term and substantial change taking the form of
shifts in demand, of the emergence of new sources of supply, national or
foreign (including supplies of goods from countries with lower costs of
production) or of new techniques of production, or of changes in the
size of the labour force.
The dual objective of measures of adaptation to
structural changes should be:
to obtain the greatest benefit from economic and
technical progress;
to protect from financial or other hardship
groups and individuals whose employment is affected by structural
changes.
To this end, and to avoid the loss of production
entailed by delays in filling vacancies, Members should establish and
adequately finance programmes to help workers to find and fit themselves
for new jobs.
Such programmes should include--
the operation of an effective employment service,
taking account of the provisions of the Employment Service
Convention and Recommendation, 1948;
the provision or encouragement of training and
retraining facilities designed to enable workers to acquire the
qualifications needed for lasting employment in expanding
occupations, taking account of the provisions of the Vocational
Training Recommendation, 1962;
the co-ordination of housing policy with
employment policy, by the provision of adequate housing and
community facilities in places where there are job vacancies, and
the provision of removal grants for workers and their dependants by
the employer or out of public funds.
Special priority should be given to measures designed to
remedy the serious, and in some countries growing, problem of unemployment
among young people. In the arrangements for young persons envisaged in the
Employment Service Convention and Recommendation, 1948, the Vocational
Guidance Recommendation, 1949, and the Vocational Training Recommendation,
1962, full account should be taken of the trends of structural change, so as
to ensure the development and the use of the capacities of young persons in
relation to the changing needs of the economy.
Efforts should be made to meet the particular needs of
categories of persons who encounter special difficulties as a result of
structural change or for other reasons, such as older workers, disabled
persons and other workers who may find it particularly difficult to change
their places of residence or their occupations.
Special attention should be given to the employment and
income needs of lagging regions and of areas where structural changes affect
large numbers of workers, in order to bring about a better balance of
economic activity throughout the country and thus to ensure a productive
utilisation of all resources.
When structural changes of exceptional magnitude
occur, measures of the kinds provided for in Paragraphs 13 to 17 of this
Recommendation may need to be accompanied by measures to avoid
large-scale, sudden dislocation and to spread the impact of the change
or changes over a reasonable period of time.
In such cases governments, in consultation with all
concerned, should give early consideration to the determination of the
best means, of a temporary and exceptional nature, to facilitate the
adaptation to the structural changes of the industries affected, and
should take action accordingly.
Appropriate machinery to promote and facilitate the
adaptation of production and employment to structural changes, with clearly
defined responsibilities in regard to the matters dealt with in Paragraphs
13 to 18 of this Recommendation, should be established.
Employment policy should take account of the common
experience that, as a consequence of technological progress and improved
productivity, possibilities arise for more leisure and intensified
educational activities.
Efforts should be made to take advantage of these
possibilities by methods appropriate to national conditions and practice
and to conditions in each industry; these methods may include:
reduction of hours of work without a decrease in
wages, within the framework of the Reduction of Hours of Work
Recommendation, 1962;
longer paid holidays;
later entry into the labour force, combined with
more advanced education and training.
IV. Employment Problems Associated with
Economic Underdevelopment
In developing countries employment policy should be an
essential element of a policy for promoting growth and fair sharing of
national incomes.
With a view to achieving a rapid expansion of production,
investment and employment, Members should seek the views and active
participation of employers and workers, and their organisations, in the
elaboration and application of national economic development policy, and of
the various aspects of social policy, in accordance with the Consultation
(Industrial and National Levels) Recommendation, 1960.
In countries where a lack of employment opportunities
is associated with a shortage of capital, all appropriate measures
should be taken to expand domestic savings and to encourage the inflow
of financial resources from other countries and from international
agencies, with a view to increasing productive investment without
prejudicing the national sovereignty or the economic independence of the
recipient countries.
In order to utilise the resources available to these
countries rationally and to increase employment therein as far as
possible, it would be desirable for them to co-ordinate their
investments and other development efforts with those of other countries,
especially in the same region.
Members should have regard to the paramount need for
the establishment of industries, public or private, which are based on
available raw materials and power, which correspond to the changing
pattern of demand in domestic and foreign markets and which use modern
techniques and appropriate research, in order to create additional
employment opportunities on a long-term basis.
Members should make every effort to reach a stage of
industrial development which ensures, within the framework of a balanced
economy, the maximum economic production of finished products, utilising
local manpower.
Particular attention should be given to measures
promoting efficient and low-cost production, diversification of the
economy and balanced regional economic development.
Besides promoting modern industrial development, Members
should, subject to technical requirements, explore the possibility of
expanding employment by--
producing, or promoting the production of, more goods
and services requiring much labour;
promoting more labour-intensive techniques, in
circumstances where these will make for more efficient utilisation of
available resources.
Measures should be taken:
to promote fuller utilisation of existing industrial
capacity to the extent compatible with the requirements of domestic and
export markets, for instance by more extensive introduction of multiple
shifts, with due regard to the provision of amenities for workers on
night shift and to the need for training a sufficient number of key
personnel to permit efficient operation of multiple shifts;
to create handicrafts and small-scale industries and
to assist them to adapt themselves to technological advances and changes
in market conditions so that they will be able to provide increasing
employment without becoming dependent on such protective measures or
special privileges as would impede economic growth; to this end the
development of co-operatives should be encouraged and efforts should be
made to establish a complementary relationship between small-scale and
large-scale industry and to develop new outlets for the products of
industry.
Within the framework of an integrated national
policy, countries in which there is much rural underemployment should
place special emphasis on a broadly based programme to promote
productive employment in the rural sector by a combination of measures,
institutional and technical, relying as fully as possible on the efforts
of the persons concerned. Such a programme should be founded on adequate
study of the nature, prevalence and regional distribution of rural
underemployment.
Major objectives should be to create incentives and
social conditions favourable to fuller utilisation of local manpower in
rural development, and to improve productivity and quality of output.
Means appropriate to local conditions should be determined, where
possible, by adequate research and the instigation of multi-purpose
pilot projects.
Special attention should be devoted to the need for
promoting opportunities for productive employment in agriculture and
animal husbandry.
Institutional measures for the promotion of
productive employment in the rural section should include agrarian
reforms, adapted to the needs of the country, including land reform and
improvement of land tenure; reform in methods of land taxation;
extension of credit facilities; development of improved marketing
facilities; and promotion of co-operative organisation in production and
marketing.
Countries in which the population is increasing rapidly,
and especially those in which it already presses heavily on the economy,
should study the economic, social and demographic factors affecting
population growth with a view to adopting economic and social policies that
make for a better balance between the growth of employment opportunities and
the growth of the labour force.
V. Action by Employers and Workers and
their Organisations
Employers and workers in the public and private
sectors, and their organisations, should take all practicable measures
to promote the achievement and maintenance of full, productive and
freely chosen employment.
In particular, they should:
consult one another, and as appropriate the
competent public authorities, employment services or similar
institutions, as far in advance as possible, with a view to working
out mutually satisfactory adjustments to changes in the employment
situation;
study trends in the economic and employment
situation, and in technical progress, and propose as appropriate,
and in good time, such action by governments and by public and
private undertakings as may safeguard within the framework of the
general interest the employment security and opportunities of the
workers;
promote wider understanding of the economic
background, of the reasons for changes in employment opportunities
in specific occupations, industries or regions, and of the necessity
of occupational and geographical mobility of manpower;
strive to create a climate which, without
prejudicing national sovereignty, economic independence or freedom
of association, will encourage increased investment from both
domestic and foreign sources, with positive effects on the economic
growth of the country;
provide or seek the provision of facilities such
as training and retraining facilities, and related financial
benefits;
promote wage, benefit and price policies that are
in harmony with the objectives of full employment, economic growth,
improved standards of living and monetary stability, without
endangering the legitimate objectives pursued by employers and
workers and their organisations; and
respect the principle of equality of opportunity
and treatment in employment and occupation, taking account of the
provisions of the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation)
Convention and Recommendation, 1958.
In consultation and co-operation as appropriate with
workers' organisations and/or representatives of workers at the level of
the undertaking, and having regard to national economic and social
conditions, measures should be taken by undertakings to counteract
unemployment, to help workers find new jobs, to increase the number of
jobs available and to minimise the consequences of unemployment; such
measures may include:
retraining for other jobs within the undertaking;
transfers within the undertaking;
careful examination of, and action to overcome,
obstacles to increasing shift work;
the earliest possible notice to workers whose
employment is to be terminated, appropriate notification to public
authorities, and some form of income protection for workers whose
employment has been terminated, taking account of the provisions of
the Termination of Employment Recommendation, 1963.
VI. International Action to Promote
Employment Objectives
Members, with the assistance as appropriate of
intergovernmental and other international organisations, should co-operate
in international action to promote employment objectives, and should, in
their internal economic policy, seek to avoid measures which have a
detrimental effect on the employment situation and the general economic
stability in other countries, including the developing countries.
Members should contribute to all efforts to expand
international trade as a means of promoting economic growth and expansion of
employment opportunities. In particular, they should take all possible
measures to diminish unfavourable repercussions on the level of employment
of fluctuations in the international terms of trade and of
balance-of-payments and liquidity problems.
Industrialised countries should, in their economic
policies, including policies for economic co-operation and for expanding
demand, take into account the need for increased employment in other
countries, in particular in the developing countries.
They should, as rapidly as their circumstances
permit, take measures to accommodate increased imports of products,
manufactured, processed and semi-processed as well as primary, that can
be economically produced in developing countries, thus promoting mutual
trade and increased employment in the production of exports.
International migration of workers for employment which
is consistent with the economic needs of the countries of emigration and
immigration, including migration from developing countries to industrialised
countries, should be facilitated, taking account of the provisions of the
Migration for Employment Convention and Recommendation (Revised), 1949, and
the Equality of Treatment (Social Security) Convention, 1962.
In international technical co-operation through
multilateral and bilateral channels special attention should be paid to
the need to develop active employment policies.
To this end, such co-operation should include--
advice in regard to employment policy and
employment market organisation as essential elements in the field of
general development planning and programming; and
co-operation in the training of qualified local
personnel, including technical personnel and management staff.
Technical co-operation programmes relating to
training should aim at providing the developing countries with suitable
facilities for training within the country or region. They should also
include adequate provision for the supply of equipment. As a
complementary measure, facilities should also be provided for the
training of nationals of developing countries in industrialised
countries.
Members should make all efforts to facilitate the
release for suitable periods, both from governmental and
non-governmental employment, of highly qualified experts in the various
fields of employment policy for work in developing countries. Such
efforts should include arrangements to make such release attractive to
the experts concerned.
In the preparation and implementation of technical
co-operation programmes, the active participation of employers' and
workers' organisations in the countries concerned should be sought.
Members should encourage the international exchange of
technological processes with a view to increasing productivity and
employment, by means such as licensing and other forms of industrial
co-operation.
Foreign-owned undertakings should meet their staffing
needs by employing and training local staff, including management and
supervisory personnel.
Arrangements should be made, where appropriate on a
regional basis, for periodical discussions and exchange of experience of
employment policies, particularly employment policies in developing
countries, with the assistance as appropriate of the International Labour
Office.
VII. Suggestions Concerning Methods of
Application
In applying the provisions of this Recommendation, each
Member of the International Labour Organisation and the employers' and
workers' organisations concerned should be guided, to the extent possible
and desirable, by the suggestions concerning methods of application set
forth in the Annex.
I. General and Selective Measures of Employment Policy
Each Member should:
make continuing studies of the size and
distribution of the labour force and the nature and extent of
unemployment and underemployment and trends therein, including,
where possible, analyses of:
the distribution of the labour force by age,
sex, occupational group, qualifications, regions and economic
sectors; probable future trends in each of these; and the
effects of demographic factors, particularly in developing
countries with rapid population growth, and of technological
change on such trends;
the volume of productive employment currently
available and likely to be available at different dates in the
future in different economic sectors, regions and occupational
groups, account being taken of projected changes in demand and
productivity;
make vigorous efforts, particularly through
censuses and sample surveys, to improve the statistical data needed
for such studies;
undertake and promote the collection and analysis
of current indicators of economic activity, and the study of trends
in the evolution of new techniques in the different sectors of
industry both at home and abroad, particularly as regards
automation, with a view, inter alia, to distinguishing short-term
fluctuations from longer-term structural changes;
make short-term forecasts of employment,
underemployment and unemployment sufficiently early and in
sufficient detail to provide a basis for prompt action to prevent or
remedy either unemployment or shortages of labour;
undertake and promote studies of the methods and
results of employment policies in other countries.
Members should make efforts to provide those
responsible for collective bargaining with information on the results of
studies of the employment situation undertaken in the International
Labour Office and elsewhere, including studies of the impact of
automation.
Attainment of the social objectives of employment policy
requires co-ordination of employment policy with other measures of economic
and social policy, in particular measures affecting:
investment, production and economic growth;
the growth and distribution of incomes;
social security;
fiscal and monetary policies, including
anti-inflationary and foreign exchange policies; and
the promotion of freer movement of goods, capital and
labour between countries.
With a view to promoting stability of production and
employment, consideration should be given to the possibility of making more
use of fiscal or quasi-fiscal measures designed to exert an automatic
stabilising influence and to maintain a satisfactory level of consumer
income and investment.
Measures designed to stabilise employment may further
include:
fiscal measures in respect of tax rates and
investment expenditure;
stimulation, or restraint, of economic activity by
appropriate measures of monetary policy;
increased, or reduced, expenditure on public works or
other public investment of a fundamental nature, for example roads,
railways, harbours, schools, training centres and hospitals; Members
should plan during periods of high employment to have a number of useful
but postponable public works projects ready to be put into operation in
times of recession;
measures of a more specific character, such as
increased government orders to a particular branch of industry in which
recession threatens to provoke a temporary decline in the level of
activity.
Measures to even out seasonal fluctuations in employment
may include:
the application of new techniques to make it possible
for work to be carried out under conditions in which it would have been
impracticable without these techniques;
the training of workers in seasonal occupations for
complementary occupations;
planning to counteract seasonal unemployment or
underemployment; special attention should be given to the co-ordination
of the activities of the different public authorities and private
enterprises concerned with building and construction operations, so as
to ensure continuity of activity to meet the employment needs of
workers.
The nature of the special difficulties which may be
encountered as a result of structural changes by the categories of
persons referred to in Paragraph 16 of the Recommendation should be
ascertained by the competent authority and appropriate action
recommended.
Special measures should be taken to provide suitable
work for these groups and to alleviate hardship.
In cases where older or disabled workers face great
difficulty in adjusting to structural changes, adequate benefits for
such workers should be provided within the framework of the social
security system, including, where appropriate, retirement benefits at an
age below that normally prescribed.
When structural changes affect large numbers of
workers concentrated in a particular area and especially if the
competitive strength of the area as a whole is impaired, Members should
provide, and should, by the provision of effective incentives and
consultation with the representatives of employers and workers,
encourage individual enterprises to provide, additional employment in
the area, based on comprehensive policies of regional development.
Measures taken to this end may include:
the diversification of existing undertakings or
the promotion of new industries;
public works or other public investment including
the expansion or the setting up of public undertakings;
information and advice to new industries as to
conditions of establishment;
measures to make the area more attractive to new
industries, for example through the redevelopment or improvement of
the infrastructure, or through the provision of special loan
facilities, temporary subsidies or temporary tax concessions or of
physical facilities such as industrial estates;
preferential consideration in the allocation of
government orders;
appropriate efforts to discourage excessive
industrial concentration.
Such measures should have regard to the type of
employment which different areas, by reason of their resources, access
to markets and other economic factors, are best suited to provide.
The boundaries of areas which are given special
treatment should be defined after careful study of the probable
repercussions on other, particularly neighbouring, areas.
II. Employment Problems Associated with Economic
Underdevelopment
Measures to expand domestic saving and encourage the
inflow of financial resources from other countries, with a view to
increasing productive investment, may include:
measures, consistent with the provisions of the
Forced Labour Convention, 1930, and the Abolition of Forced Labour
Convention, 1957, and taken within the framework of a system of adequate
minimum labour standards and in consultation with employers and workers
and their organisations, to use available labour, with a minimum
complement of scarce resources, to increase the rate of capital
formation;
measures to guide savings and investment from
unproductive uses to uses designed to promote economic development and
employment;
measures to expand savings:
through the curtailment of non-essential
consumption, with due regard to the need for maintaining adequate
incentives; and
through savings schemes, including contributory
social security schemes and small savings schemes;
measures to develop local capital markets to
facilitate the transformation of savings into productive investment;
measures to encourage the reinvestment in the country
of a reasonable part of the profits from foreign investments, as well as
to recover and to prevent the outflow of national capital with a view to
directing it to productive investment.
Measures to expand employment by the encouragement of
labour-intensive products and techniques may include:
the promotion of labour-intensive methods
of production by means of:
work study to increase the efficiency of
modern labour-intensive operations;
research and dissemination of information
about labour-intensive techniques, particularly in public works
and construction;
tax concessions and preferential treatment in
regard to import or other quotas to undertakings concerned;
full exploration of the technical, economic and
organisational possibilities of labour-intensive construction works,
such as multi-purpose river valley development projects and the
building of railways and highways.
In determining whether a particular product or
technique is labour-intensive, attention should be given to the
proportions in which capital and labour are employed not merely in the
final processes, but in all stages of production, including that of
materials, power and other requirements; attention should be given also
to the proportions in which increased availability of a product will
generate increased demand for labour and capital respectively.
Institutional measures for the promotion of productive
employment in the rural sector may, in addition to those provided for in
Paragraph 27 of the Recommendation, include promotion of community
development programmes, consistent with the provisions of the Forced Labour
Convention, 1930, and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957, to
evoke the active participation of the persons concerned, and in particular
of employers and workers and their organisations, in planning and carrying
out local economic and social development projects, and to encourage the use
in such projects of local manpower, materials and financial resources that
might otherwise remain idle or unproductively used.
Means appropriate to local conditions for the fuller
utilisation of local manpower in rural development may include:
local capital-construction projects, particularly
projects conducive to a quick increase in agricultural production, such
as small and medium irrigation and drainage works, the construction of
storage facilities and feeder roads and the development of local
transport;
land development and settlement;
more labour-intensive methods of cultivation,
expansion of animal husbandry and the diversification of agricultural
production;
the development of other productive activities, such
as forestry and fishing;
the promotion of rural social services such as
education, housing and health services;
the development of viable small-scale industries and
handicrafts in rural areas, such as local processing of agricultural
products and manufacture of simple consumers' and producers' goods
needed in the area.
In pursuance of Paragraph 5 of the Recommendation,
and taking account of the provisions of the Vocational Training
Recommendation, 1962, developing countries should endeavour to eradicate
illiteracy and promote vocational training for workers in all sectors,
as well as appropriate professional training for scientific, technical
and managerial personnel.
The necessity of training instructors and workers in
order to carry out the improvement and modernisation of agriculture
should be taken into account.
