Article 1

1. With a view to stimulating economic growth and development, raising levels of living, meeting manpower requirements and overcoming unemployment and underemployment, each Member shall declare and pursue, as a major goal, an active policy designed to promote full, productive and freely chosen employment.

2. The said policy shall aim at ensuring that-

(a)   there is work for all who are available for and seeking work;

(b)   such work is as productive as possible;

(c)   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.

3. The said policy shall 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 shall be pursued by methods that are appropriate to national conditions and practices.

Please indicate how the active policy designed to promote full, productive and freely chosen employment has been declared in your country. Please indicate, in particular, on what occasions this policy was introduced and specify the texts by which it was defined.

Please supply information on the situation, level and trends of employment, unemployment and underemployment in your country, both in the aggregate and as they affect particular categories of workers such as women, young persons, older workers and disabled workers. Please also indicate the extent to which employment objectives included in development plans and programmes have been or are being attained.

Please describe the principal policies pursued and measures taken with a view to ensuring that there is work for all who are available for and seeking work, with particular reference to the following matters, in so far as they are relevant to conditions in your country:

1. Over-all and sectoral development policies :

Measures in such fields as investment policy ; fiscal and monetary policies ; trade policy ; prices, incomes and wages policies.

Policies and measures concerning balanced regional development, development of the infrastructure, rural development with reference both to agriculture and non-agricultural activities, and industrial development.

2. Labour market policies:

Measures to ensure the matching of labour supply and demand, on both an occupational and geographical basis, including measures for the adjustment of labour to structural change resulting from, for example, changes in international trade or technology.

Measures to meet the needs of particular categories of workers such as women, young people, older workers, disabled workers.

3. Educational and training policies :

Policies with regard to vocational training, retraining and further training ; measures to co-ordinate education and training policies with prospective employment opportunities.

Please indicate what measures have been adopted to ensure that work is as productive as possible.

Please indicate what provisions ensure that there is freedom of choice of employment and that each worker shall have the fullest possible opportunity to qualify for and to use his skills, in the conditions set out in paragraph 2(c).

Please state whether special difficulties have been encountered in attaining the objectives of full, productive and freely chosen employment, and indicate how far these difficulties have been overcome.

Please describe briefly how the employment policy objectives are related to other economic and social objectives.

Article 2

Each Member shall, by such methods and to such extent as may be appropriate under national conditions-

(a)   decide on and keep under review, within the framework of a co-ordinated economic and social policy, the measures to be adopted for attaining the objectives specified in Article 1 ;

(b)   take such steps as may be needed, including when appropriate the establishment of programmes, for the application of these measures.

Please describe the measures taken to collect and analyse statistical and other data concerning the size and distribution of the labour force, the nature and extent of unemployment and underemployment and trends therein, as a basis for deciding on measures of employment policy.

Please describe the procedures adopted to ensure that the effects on employment of measures taken to promote economic development or other economic and social objectives receive due consideration, at both the planning and the implementation stages, and that the principal measures of employment policy are decided on and kept under periodical review within the framework of a co-ordinated economic and social policy.

Article 3

In the application of this Convention, representatives of the persons affected by the measures to be taken, and in particular representatives of employers and workers, shall be consulted concerning employment policies, with a view to taking fully into account their experience and views and securing their full co-operation in formulating and enlisting support for such policies.

Please indicate the manner in which representatives of the persons affected are consulted concerning employment policies, with reference both to consultations with representatives of employers' and workers' organisations and to consultations with representatives of other sectors of the economically active population such as those working in the rural sector and the informal sector. Please also indicate whether formal consultative procedures have been established for this purpose.

III. Please state to what authority or authorities the application of the above-mentioned legislation and administrative regulations, etc., is entrusted, and by what methods application is supervised and enforced. In particular, please supply information on the organisation and working of inspection.

IV. Please state whether courts of law or other tribunals have given decisions involving questions of principle relating to the application of the Convention. If so, please supply the text of these decisions.

V. If your country has received any assistance or advice under the World Employment Programme or under other ILO technical co-operation projects, please indicate the action taken as a result. Please also indicate any factors which may have prevented or delayed such action.

VI. In so far as such information has not been supplied in reply to previous questions, please forward copies or extracts of reports, studies and inquiries, statistical data, etc., covering such matters as the size and distribution of the labour force; the nature, extent and trends of unemployment and underemployment; manpower projections; income and poverty; technological change; and the impact on employment of economic and social policy measures.

VII. Please indicate the representative organisations of employers and workers to which copies of the present report have been communicated in accordance with article 23, paragraph 2, of the Constitution of the International Labour Organisation.¹ If copies of the report have not been communicated to representative organisations of employers and/or workers, or if they have been communicated to bodies other than such organisations, please supply information on any particular circumstances existing in your country which explain the procedure followed.

Please indicate whether you have received from the organisations of employers or workers concerned any observations, either of a general kind or in connection with the present or the previous report, regarding the practical application of the provisions of the Convention or the application of the legislation or other measures implementing the Convention. If so, please communicate the observations received, together with any comments that you consider useful.

¹Article 23, paragraph 2, of the Constitution reads as follows: "Each Member shall communicate to the representative organisations recognised for the purpose of article 3 copies of the information and reports communicated to the Director-General in pursuance of articles 19 and 22."

ANNEX I

EMPLOYMENT POLICY RECOMMENDATION, 1964 (No. 122)

ANNEX II

RECOMMENDATION (No. 169) CONCERNING THE EMPLOYMENT POLICY (SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS), 1984