Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1990, published 77th ILC session (1990)

Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122) - Peru (Ratification: 1967)

1. The Committee notes the detailed report supplied by the Government for the period ending 30 June 1988. The Government has been pursuing an economic policy since 1985 designed to promote the expansion of internal demand and the full exploitation of existing capacity to reactivate production, increase employment and improve wages and income distribution. In order to encourage the integration of the workforce into the labour market, the Government has carried out specific job-creation programmes, such as the Temporary Income Support Programme (PAIT), which is designed to increase the income from employment of the inhabitants of marginal urban areas, and the Emergency Employment Programme (PROEM), which is designed to facilitate the recruitment of new workers on a fixed-term basis.

2. The information supplied in the Government's report illustrates the positive results of this strategy during the years 1986-87. The rapid growth of the gross domestic product (8.3 per cent and 6.9 per cent in 1986 and 1987, respectively) resulted in higher levels of employment, while the rates of unemployment and underemployment decreased. In Metropolitan Lima, the unemployment rate was reduced to 5.4 per cent in 1986 and 4.8 per cent in 1987. From the second half of 1987, the pace of production began to decrease as a result of the progressive exhaustion of the existing capacity in a number of industrial sectors, the lower availability of the foreign exchange needed to provide the inputs for industry and the high dependence on foreign inputs, capital and technology. This gave rise to strong inflationary pressure due to excess demand. In 1988 the Government forecast a growth rate for the GDP of 2.9 per cent. Nevertheless, according to the National Planning Institute estimates referred to in the Government's report, it was forecast that there would be a fall in the GDP (of between 8 and 10 per cent in 1988 in relation with 1987) and a marked deterioration in the employment situation and in real incomes. The most recent data available to the Office, and particularly the information supplied by the Regional Employment Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean (PREALC), which the Committee notes, has confirmed these forecasts and trends for 1988.

3. As regards its medium-term policy, the Government supplies information concerning the objectives and strategy set out in the 1986-90 Plan. The creation of more than 1 million jobs has been envisaged, of which 500,000 temporary jobs are in the context of the PAIT. Indeed, considering the limitations of the productive sector to absorb the wide margin of unemployment that exists and the additional cohorts of workers on the labour market each year, the Government states that it has become indispensable to pursue the state programmes for the generation of employment and to support the informal and rural sectors during this period. The urban informal sector in particular, according to the Government, accounts for 40.9 per cent of the total economically active population and has an important role in the generation of income and jobs and has therefore been assigned particular priority in dealing with its problems. In this connection, the Government is implementing the Social and Job Development Project (PRODESE) to improve terms and conditions of employment, productivity and the incomes of those employed in the urban informal sector. Other important objectives for 1986-90 are public investment, with priority being given to labour-intensive projects, the realigning of technical options and human resource planning.

4. The Committee takes due note of the information supplied by the Government in its report and of its point-by-point reply to the comments made in its observation and direct request in 1988. Over recent years, particular efforts have been made to increase the employment and the living standards of the most vulnerable categories of the population. The Committee is nevertheless concerned at the development since 1988 of the economic situation, which is characterised by recession, inflationary pressure, the application of austerity measures and their effects on employment, low labour productivity and low levels of income, which are concentrated in the urban informal sector and in rural areas. In this difficult situation for the application of the Convention, the Committee trusts that the Government will continue to make every effort to declare and pursue, as a major goal, an active policy designed to promote full, productive and freely chosen employment. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would continue supplying information on the extent to which the employment objectives included in its development plans and programmes are being attained and on any particular difficulties that have been encountered and the principal policies that have been applied in the sense of Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the Convention.

5. Other more specific matters concerning the application of the Convention are raised in a request that is being addressed directly to the Government.