Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1992, published 79th ILC session (1992)

Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122) - Belgium (Ratification: 1969)

1. The Committee has taken note of the Government's two successive reports dealing with the period ending June 1990 and of the attached documentation. As usual the Government has supplied an exhaustive collection of information dealing with various aspects of its economic policy and in particular with employment policy measures.

2. The Committee notes that the trend towards an improvement in the general employment situation to which it drew attention in its previous comments was confirmed in the course of the period under review. The high growth rate of economic activity made it possible for employment to grow steadily and for the unemployment rate to continue to decline; according to the OECD standardised rates, the unemployment rate was 7.9 per cent in 1990. The Committee notes in particular the significant reduction in the unemployment rate among young people. It nevertheless observes that serious structural problems persist. There are still substantial regional disparities in the situation and trends of employment and unemployment: the decrease in unemployment essentially benefits Flanders, where the unemployment rate is half that in Wallonia. Long-term unemployment continues to account for nearly two-thirds of total unemployment and affects older workers, women and the least-skilled in particular. The decline in unemployment among men is greater than that in unemployment among women, which is tending to increase in relative terms. Furthermore the combination, in a context of growing economic activity, of a decline in unemployment and a heavy increase in the number of unfilled job vacancies is a sign of imbalance between the structures of supply and demand on the labour market.

3. The Government gives details in its report of the various measures designed to bring the labour market into balance, paying particular attention to the problem of structural unemployment. In essentials those measures aim, in the first place, to increase the supply of employment, especially for the benefit of young people and the long-term unemployed, through programmes of financial incentives for recruitment or temporary assignment to tasks in the public interest; in the second place they aim to reduce the demand for employment by reducing the length of economically active life through a system of early retirement, by encouraging flexible working time, by promoting leaves of absence; or again by increasing the duration of compulsory schooling.

4. The Committee notes that the social partners, in adopting the inter-occupational agreement for the period 1989-90, agreed to give priority, in making allocations from the Employment Fund, to the training and integration of young people and jobseekers who experienced particular difficulty in fitting into the labour market. It observes, however, that, according to the Government, special employment programmes (unemployed persons put to work, special setting for work, third work circuit, traineeships for young people) have made only a limited contribution to the reduction of unemployment, which is mainly due to the combined effects of improving economic activity and declining population trends. With reference to measures which affect the flexibility of labour, the Government states that it is impossible to give a precise picture of their effect on employment and that they have probably made it possible to divide up the available jobs among a greater number of workers but at the risk of a proliferation of precarious situations. The Committee notes further that the reduction in unemployment has been secured at the cost of keeping employment rates relatively low. It would be grateful if the Government would indicate in its next report whether the population trends and the attendant risks of manpower shortages are not likely, in the long run, to call into question programmes encouraging withdrawal from the labour market.

5. With reference to its previous observation, the Committee hopes that the Government will be in a position to supply in its next report a summary of the available information on the effect produced on employment by the various measures of economic and social policy and labour market policy described.