Observation (CEACR) - adoptée 2001, publiée 90ème session CIT (2002)

Convention (n° 88) sur le service de l'emploi, 1948 - Argentine (Ratification: 1956)

In reply to its observation of 1998, the Government has provided a report on the change in management of employment offices, drawn up by the National Directorate of Employment and Training Policies of the Secretariat of Employment. The report shows that in 1998, of the total of 336 employment offices, around one-third were government entities, while the rest were managed by non-governmental organizations. Trade union and non-governmental organizations were those entities which placed the greatest number of persons in the vacancies available with employers. Employment offices provide a series of services to the unemployed which go beyond the traditional functions of an employment office (community distribution of clothes and food, canteens, crèches and specific grants intended to cover the precarious situation of those concerned). The Committee notes that, according to the data contained in ECLAC’s Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2000-01, the employment rate fell from 36.8 per cent in October 1999 to 36.5 per cent in October 2000. The unemployment rate rose from 13.8 to 14.7 per cent (between October 1999 and 2000). In 2000, the number of persons covered by temporary employment programmes fell (137,000 in October 2000 compared with 198,000 one year previously) and there were over 1.3 million underemployed workers. In these circumstances, the Committee requests the Government to provide a detailed report on the application of the Convention and recalls the need to ensure the essential duty of the employment service to achieve the best possible organization of the employment market and its revision to meet the new requirements of the economy and the working population (Articles 1 and 3 of the Convention). The Committee once again requests the Government to provide in its next report any new statistical information published in annual or periodical reports on the number of public employment offices established, applications for employment received, vacancies notified and persons placed in employment by such offices (Part IV of the report form).

Articles 4 and 5. In reply to the comments that it has been making for many years, the Government indicates again that advisory committees have not been set up. The Committee emphasizes the importance, in a context such as the one mentioned above, that cooperation of representatives of employers and workers through advisory committees can have in the organization and operation of the employment service and in the development of employment service policy. The Committee expresses the firm hope that the Government will be in a position to indicate in its next report that advisory committees have been set up and are able to operate so as to give full effect to the above Articles of the Convention.