Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2016, published 106th ILC session (2017)

Employment Service Convention, 1948 (No. 88) - Guinea-Bissau (Ratification: 1977)

The Committee notes with regret that the Government’s report has not been received. It hopes that the next report will contain full information on the matters raised in its previous comments.

Repetition

Contribution of the employment service to the promotion of employment. The Committee takes note of the report received in September 2013 in which the Government indicates that public employment services are not fully operational due to the lack of funding and of an employment policy framework. The Committee notes that apart from the Department of Employment Service and the Pilot Employment Centre that have been established within the Ministry of Labour, the Government has established, in 2011, an observatory of employment and vocational training responsible for the collection and analysis of labour market information. The Government highlights that it is actively working to ensure that the observatory becomes operational soon. The Committee also takes note that the employment policy is still in the process of being prepared. To this end, a working group has been constituted to continue work on a document, originally prepared in 2004, that provides an overview of the employment situation and identifies areas for employment as well as measures that can help to increase the domestic employment rate. Finally, the Committee takes note of the Government’s indication that the document that outlines the national strategy to reduce poverty (DENARP) sets forth employment promotion as a line of action of its third strategic axis. It also recalls that in its 2010 General Survey concerning employment instruments, the Committee indicated that the public employment service forms part of the institutions necessary for achieving full employment. Convention No. 88, the Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122), and the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181), all three form a necessary building block for employment growth (see 2010 General Survey, paragraphs 785–790). The Committee therefore again expresses the hope that a national employment policy will be adopted soon and that measures will be taken to strengthen employment services intended for young people, including services established outside the capital. It requests the Government to provide further information on the operation of the public employment service and also on the steps taken to strengthen the institutions necessary for achieving full employment. The Committee invites the Government to include in the report due in 2015 up-to-date information on the measures adopted to ensure the best possible organization of the employment market as an integral part of the national programme for the achievement and maintenance of full employment and the development and use of productive resources (Articles 1 and 3 of the Convention), in cooperation with the social partners (Articles 4 and 5). Finally, the Committee hopes that the observatory of employment and vocational training will soon become operational and that it will provide the Government with statistical information on the number of public employment offices established, the number of applications for employment received, the number of vacancies notified and the number of persons placed in employment by such offices (Part IV of the report form).