Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2008, published 98th ILC session (2009)

Employment Promotion and Protection against Unemployment Convention, 1988 (No. 168) - Norway (Ratification: 1990)

The Committee notes the information furnished by the Government in reply to its previous observation and, in particular, that concerning the application of Article 26 of the Convention.

Article 21 of the Convention. Suspension of benefit. In the Committee’s previous observation, the Government has been urged to review the guidelines of the Directorate of Labour and Welfare (LWS) so as to ensure that unemployed persons are not sanctioned for refusing to accept unsuitable job offers at least during the initial period of 26 weeks provided for in Article 19(2)(a) of the Convention. The Government emphasizes that during the first three months of unemployment, the jobseeker has the primary responsibility of finding a job, and will therefore determine which jobs the jobseeker finds suitable. However, as time passes, the jobseeker must be ready to adjust expectations and expand the job search. On the basis of the jobseeker’s curriculum vitae and the labour market, the job request will be evaluated every third month. This evaluation can result in an agreement between the jobseeker and the LWS to expand the job search. The Committee understands from these explanations that, in practice, the suitability of jobs searched for and offered is being assessed for every new period of three months with a view to expanding the acceptable types of jobs by relinquishing certain criteria of suitability. It understands also that under this arrangement special rules apply for the initial period of unemployment of three months when the decision on the suitability of available jobs is largely left at the discretion of the jobseeker himself. The Committee invites the Government to consider how the existing practice of giving unemployed persons primary responsibility for a job search during the initial three months of unemployment and therefore a certain discretion in the selection of job offers could best be reflected in the guidelines of the Directorate of Labour and Welfare. Such consideration would assist the implementation of section G.4.1 of the guidelines, which forbids applicants for employment to make reservations as regards the type of occupation they will work in and requires them to accept work even in occupations for which they are not trained or in which they have no previous experience.

As regards sanctions imposed on unemployed persons, the Government reports that in 2007 less than 200 jobseekers got their benefit stopped during the first three months of unemployment because of refusal to accept: offered work, work in another part of the country or part-time work. The Committee would like the Government to verify that in all these cases the jobseekers concerned were not sanctioned for having refused to take up jobs that were not suitable to their acquired professional status. It therefore invites the Government, if necessary, to follow the example of Denmark where, in order to assess the extent to which the unemployed persons refuse job offers due to the job not being “suitable”, the National Directorate of Labour, which deals with complaints and supervision in relation to the Unemployment Insurance Act, had in 2005 manually examined all cases (352 files) of sanctions for refusal to take up a job offer. The Committee hopes that the results of this verification would help the Government to decide whether or not the guidelines of the Directorate of Labour and Welfare need to be changed in order to ensure that the discretionary power to sanction the behaviour of the unemployed persons in the current labour market situation is being applied with due respect for their acquired professional and social status.

In this connection the Committee further notes the assurances of the Government that the unemployed will normally not get offered jobs from the Labour and Welfare Service, unless it is a job that corresponds to his or her education and qualifications. The LWS will initially devote a lot of time, to identify the jobseekers’ qualifications, working experience and job requests. The goal is to help the unemployed to get a suitable job. When considering whether the work is suitable, the LWS should – according to the Directorate of Labour and Welfare’s guidelines, section A, article 4.18 – also consider:

–      how long the jobseeker has been unemployed;

–      the probability of getting a job which corresponds to his or her qualifications;

–      whether the offered job can give valuable working experience; and

–      whether the remuneration offered for the job involves an unreasonable reduction of income compared to what the person is receiving by way of unemployment benefits.

The Committee would like the Government to explain how this last criterion, which requires the jobseeker to consider job offers remunerated at the level below the unemployment benefit, could still be retained in the guidelines of the Directorate of Labour and Welfare after the abolition since 1 January 2006 of the legal provisions, which previously made it possible to compel unemployed persons to accept jobs offering less income than the unemployment benefit.