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

1. The Committee notes the Government's report for the period between June 1986 and June 1988. It also notes the statement by the Netherlands Council of Employers' Federations (RCO) expressing its agreement with the content of the Government's report. The Committee has also taken account of the information available to the Office or contained in the reports and periodical surveys of the OECD.

2. The Government has supplied substantial information and analyses on the labour market situation in relation to a number of questions raised in its 1987 observation. In overall terms, the following characteristics may be identified. Despite growth of employment (at the rate of 1.2 per cent in 1987 and 1 per cent in 1988), unemployment seems only to have declined slightly. The unemployment rate, which the Government described as a "relative concept", is difficult to estimate. According to the new methods of calculation introduced by the Government, it was 8.7 per cent in 1987 and 8.3 per cent in 1988. The standardised rates calculated by the OECD are 9.6 per cent and 9.5 per cent, respectively. According to the information supplied by the Government in its report, there has been a relative improvement in the situation of young persons, although their rate of unemployment remains high. As regards long-term unemployment, although it ceased to increase in 1987, more than 53 per cent of the unemployed had been without work for more than one year. Very long-term unemployment (over two years) has continued to increase, with the longer period of unemployment decreasing opportunities for occupational reintegration.

3. The Government's report also contains detailed information on the measures that have been taken or are envisaged to meet the employment needs of young persons and of underprivileged groups and persons. Specific measures for the employment of young persons, such as the extension at the national level of the JOB plan (the temporary scheme for municipal employment initiatives for young people) are intended to ease their access to the labour market through improved vocational training. For the first time, in 1987, the objective that had been set in agreement with the social partners in 1984, of doubling the number of young persons admitted to the apprenticeship training system, was attained. In consultation with the Joint Industrial Labour Foundation, an Act was adopted in 1986 to promote the employment of the very long-term unemployed, through exemption from social security contributions and the provision of a part of their training and guidance costs. Emphasising the increased unemployment of ethnic minorities between 1986 and 1987, the Government indicates that these workers, in the same way as other categories of disadvantaged workers such as women and the disabled, will benefit from positive measures to promote their access to employment in the public sector.

4. The Government's report supplies more information on the various measures taken in recent years to promote labour market flexibility, both as regards internal flexibility (reduction of working hours) and external flexibility (part-time work, temporary work, fixed-term contracts, etc.). The conclusions of a survey referred to in the Government's report illustrate that flexible forms of employment are concentrated in lower category jobs and are mainly occupied by women. The forecasts made in this survey of an increase in these forms of employment in 1986 and 1987 appear to have been contradicted more recently by other surveys. Part-time employment represents a relatively high proportion of total employment (between 25 and 30 per cent in 1987-88). The Government emphasises that flexible forms of employment have both advantages and disadvantages: a flexible contract may be a means of obtaining a permanent job (as was the case in 1985-86 for more than 55 per cent of temporary workers or workers with a flexible contract), although training measures may have a lower cost-benefit ratio. The Committee recalls that the Government also indicated that these forms of employment relationship often place the worker in a weak position as regards the protection of his or her rights concerning dismissal, working hours and social insurance. The Government puts forward the hypothesis that the economic recovery can explain the fact that in 1987 the growth in the number of flexible jobs ceased, although they had increased markedly during the first half of the 1980s. Finally, the Committee notes, from the Government's report on the Fee-Charging Employment Agencies Convention (Revised), 1949 (No. 96), that a Bill is due to be adopted in the near future to organise the employment service on a tripartite basis and to authorise and regulate private employment agencies. The Committee refers to its direct request on Convention No. 96 as regards the conformity of the plan with the obligations that have been accepted under that Convention.

5. The Committee appreciates the repeated efforts by the Government to establish a detailed and documented report describing and analysing labour market measures and policies under their various aspects. It hopes that the Government will continue to supply information on the development of the labour market and the impact of measures that are taken to improve it, and that it will pay particular attention to the problems referred to in the Committee's comments due to their acute nature: long-term unemployment, the unemployment of young persons and other disadvantaged categories on the labour market, the development of particular forms of employment, policies as regards training, vocational rehabilitation and retraining, and measures to co-ordinate education and training policies with employment prospects. Furthermore, the Committee would be grateful if the Government would supply the information called for in the report form on overall and sectoral development policies (including fiscal and monetary policies; prices, incomes and wages policies; investment policy and trade policy), and on the procedures adopted to ensure that the effects on employment of measures taken to promote economic development or other economic and social objectives receive due consideration (Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention). Finally, the Committee would be grateful if the Government would supply information on the co-operation procedures with organisations of employers and workers that it proposes to introduce relating to the operation of the employment service and, more generally, on the manner in which representatives of these organisations and of other sectors of the economically active population are consulted concerning employment policies (Article 3).