Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2011, published 101st ILC session (2012)

Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181) - Hungary (Ratification: 2003)

The Committee notes the Government’s report, unanimously adopted in August 2010 by the National ILO Council, including complete information on the matters raised in the 2006 direct request. The Government reports that legislative amendments which affect private employment agencies replaced the earlier licensing system with simple reporting. Thus, to pursue private employment agency activities, it is sufficient to report the relevant intention to the competent labour centre and the activities can be started simultaneously. The Committee also notes amendments to Act No. CXXVI of 2009 on various labour acts which provides that the Government can prescribe, in a decree, the amount of financial security in the case of job placement in Hungary. Government Decree No. 284/2009 specifies the amount of financial security in the case of private employment placement and hiring-out of workers (2,000,000 Hungarian forints (HUF)), private employment placement in the European Economic Area (EEA), including Hungary (HUF500,000), and placement outside the EEA (HUF1 million). With regard to migrant workers hired by private employment agencies, the Government indicates that they receive the same protection in their employment relationship as any other employee, as the Labour Code provides the requirement of equal treatment with regard to employment matters. Based on data received from labour centres, the Government reports that, on 31 December 2008, 891 private employment agencies and 948 temporary employment companies were registered with the public employment service. About 45 per cent of these agencies and companies were active in the central Hungarian region. In 2008, a total of 1,250,752 jobseekers asked for help from private employment agencies, and 31,309 successful placements were made in the same year. The Committee notes that the labour centres made 14 resolutions against private employment agencies and one resolution against a temporary employment agency during the reporting period, copies of which were included with the Government’s report, in connection with the existence of the conditions of, and the performance of, private employment placement and labour hiring-out activities. The Committee asks the Government to provide further information in its next report on the replacement of the licensing system with a simple reporting system and, following this replacement, how compliance with the requirements of the Convention will be ensured. It also invites the Government to continue providing information on the manner in which the Convention is applied in practice, including reports by the labour centres on private employment agencies investigated, infringements of the provisions of the Convention, the sanctions applied, as well as statistics on the number of workers registered with private employment agencies (Part V of the report form).

Articles 11 and 12. Protection for workers and responsibilities of private employment agencies and user enterprises. The Government reports that employees mediated by private employment agencies receive the same protection as any other employee. The Government further indicates that the legislation provides the opportunity of collective bargaining to hired-out employees with temporary employment agencies. However, bargaining is not of full scope due to the limited power of the employment agency over the user enterprise. Given the particularities of working arrangements in which employees work for a user enterprise that assigns and supervises the execution of the work and the uncertainty as to responsibility, it is necessary for member States to address these particularities through measures that ensure that in each case effective responsibility is determined (see paragraph 313 of the 2010 General Survey concerning employment instruments). The Committee requests the Government to provide information in its next report on the measures taken to ensure adequate protection for workers employed by private employment agencies and user enterprises in relation to collective bargaining.

Article 13. Cooperation between the public and private employment services. The Government indicates that the public employment service and private employment agencies have started to elaborate the contents of cooperation and conclude relevant agreements in order to develop information systems to better understand the labour market. The Government also reports on the manner in which temporary employment companies and private employment agencies communicate data to the competent labour centres where they are registered. The information gathered is publicly available and the summary of the activities can be accessed online. The Committee invites the Government to report on the manner in which it will enable efficient cooperation between the public and private employment services so as to facilitate the operation of the labour market.