R044 - Unemployment Provision Recommendation, 1934 (No. 44)

The Conference,

Having adopted a Convention ensuring benefit or allowances to the involuntarily unemployed;

Considering that this Convention lays down the minimum conditions to be complied with by every scheme of unemployment insurance or assistance;

Considering that it is desirable to indicate a number of general principles which practice shows to be best calculated to promote a satisfactory organisation of unemployment insurance and assistance;

Recommends that each Member should take the following principles and rules into consideration:

1. 1. In countries where compulsory insurance against unemployment is not in operation, steps should be taken to create such a system as soon as possible.
2. 2. In countries in which compulsory or voluntary unemployment insurance is in operation, a complementary assistance scheme should be maintained to cover persons who have exhausted their right to benefit and in certain cases those who have not yet acquired the right to benefit; this scheme should be on a different basis from the ordinary arrangements for the relief of destitution.
3. 3. All schemes for the payment of unemployment benefit or allowances should cover not only persons who are wholly unemployed, but also persons who are partially unemployed.
4. 4.
   • (a) Unemployment insurance and assistance schemes should be applied as soon as possible to all persons who are employed under a contract of service, and to persons employed under a contract of apprenticeship with money payment. If, however, exceptions are considered necessary, they should be confined within the narrowest possible limits.
   • (b) Such persons should be covered either by insurance or assistance until they reach the age at which they are entitled to an old-age pension.
   • (c) If circumstances make it difficult to apply the general provisions relating to unemployment insurance to a particular class of workers, special arrangements should be made for the insurance of such workers. These special arrangements should aim in particular at ensuring adequate proof of unemployment and at adapting the benefit to the normal earnings of the workers concerned.
   • (d) Whenever possible, and in particular whenever satisfactory measures of supervision can be applied, special provision should be made for the relief in case of unemployment of persons of comparatively small means who work on their own account.
5. 5. Where it is considered advisable to fix a maximum remuneration as a criterion of liability to insurance, only such workers should thereby be excluded as are in receipt of remuneration sufficiently high for them to ensure their own protection against the risk of unemployment, the ultimate object being to include all workers, manual and non-manual, irrespective of income.
6. 6. The qualifying period permitted by the Convention should not exceed 26 weeks' employment in an occupation covered by the scheme, or the payment of 26 weekly contributions or the equivalent, within twelve months preceding the claim for benefit, or alternatively 52 weeks' such employment, or 52 weekly contributions or the equivalent, within twenty-four months preceding the claim for benefit.
7. 7. The period during which benefit is payable under national laws or regulations should be as long as is consistent with the solvency of the scheme; and every effort should be made to pay allowances as long as claimants are in need of them.
8. 8. Subject to the provisions concerning partially unemployed persons, of Articles 3 and 7 of the Convention, and of Paragraph 3 of the present Recommendation, the waiting period permitted by the Convention should not exceed eight days per spell of unemployment.
9. 9. In deciding whether employment in an occupation other than that in which a claimant has previously been engaged is "suitable employment" for the purpose of the disqualification permitted by the Convention, account should be taken of the length of the claimant's service in the previous occupation, his chances of obtaining work in it, his vocational training, and his suitability for the work.
10. 10. Disqualification for the receipt of benefit or allowances on the ground that a claimant has lost his employment by reason of a stoppage of work due to a trade dispute should be confined to cases in which the claimant is directly interested in the dispute, and should in all cases cease when the stoppage of work ceases.
11. 11.
    • (a) The obligation to attend a course of vocational or other instruction permitted by the Convention as a condition for the receipt of benefit or allowances should be imposed only if the unemployed person will derive an advantage therefrom either from the point of view of physical or mental well-being or of vocational or general capabilities.
    • (b) When imposing on an unemployed person an obligation to accept employment on relief works, account should be taken of his age, health, previous occupation and suitability for the employment in question.
    • (c) Only works of an exceptional and temporary character, organised by the public authority by means of funds specially allocated for the relief of the unemployed, should be considered as relief works.
12. 12. Part of the money allocated to the relief of unemployment should be available for the purpose of facilitating the return of unemployed persons to employment, such as vocational and other training, and the payment of fares to unemployed persons who find employment in a district other than that in which they have been residing.
13. 13. There should be a periodical review by the competent authority of the financial position of insurance funds in order that they may be kept as far as possible solvent and self-supporting. The financial arrangements should so far as possible include provisions to enable the scheme to surmount changes of short duration in the level of unemployment without change of the conditions governing the scheme.
14. 14. An emergency fund should be created for the purpose of ensuring the payment, during periods of particularly severe unemployment, of the allowances provided for under national laws or regulations.
15. 15. Provision should be made for the participation of representatives of the contributors in the administration of insurance schemes.
16. 16. Equality of treatment should be applied in appropriate cases not only to the nationals of Members bound by the Convention but also to those of Members and States which, without having ratified the Convention, effectively apply its provisions.
17. 17. States should regulate by means of bilateral agreements with neighbouring States the conditions under which benefit or allowances shall be paid to unemployed workers in frontier zones who have their residence in one country and who work in another.