No. 88 - Employment Service, 1948

Provisions

• Ratifying countries must maintain a free public employment service, comprising a nation-wide network of local and regional offices, under the direction of a national authority.
• The general policy of the service is to be developed in consultation with employer and worker organisations, through advisory committees.
• The staff of the employment service must comprise a sufficient number of adequately trained public officials with the status and stability of employment to make them independent of changes of government and of improper influences.
• The service must ensure effective recruitment and placement by:
  • helping workers find suitable employment and employers find suitable workers;
  • obtaining vacancies;
  • interviewing applicants for employment;
  • referring applicants to vocational guidance or training if appropriate;
  • assisting occupational and geographic mobility; and
  • collecting and disseminating data on the employment market.
• The employment service is also to co-operate in administering unemployment relief schemes, and in social and economic planning.
• Employment offices must be permitted to specialise by occupations and industries, and to meet the needs of particular groups, such as young or disabled people.
• Employers and workers are both to be encouraged to make full use of the service.

Administered by

Department of Labour

Ministry of Justice

• Human Rights Act 1993

Ministry of Social Development

• Social Security Act 1964

Privacy Commissioner

• Privacy Act 1993

Statistics New Zealand

• Statistics Act 1975

How New Zealand implements it

• Work and Income, a service of the Ministry of Social Development, operates a nation-wide network of service centres. Work and Income aims to assist people who are unemployed and seeking work, by providing:
  • quality nation-wide placement services to employers and job seekers;
  • programmes that help people increase their opportunities for employment;
  • work opportunities for communities; and
  • information and advice on the employment market.
• All Work and Income service centres are required to ensure that they meet the needs of groups with particular disadvantages, including women, Maori and Pacific Islands people, youth, and people with disabilities.
• Work and Income staff are recruited solely on the basis of merit, and are given full training. Work and Income provides integrated delivery of income support and employment services.
• All employers may use Work and Income, which maintains contact with employers in order to obtain vacancies and place job seekers.
• Work and Income refers job seekers to suitable vacancies and also, if appropriate, to places in vocational guidance, careers advice, training, or other employment assistance programmes. Recipients of a work-tested benefit are automatically registered as job seekers. Non-work tested beneficiaries and people not receiving a benefit are eligible to register as job seekers. ·
• Statistics New Zealand and Work and Income collect data on a wide range of matters, such as employment, unemployment and vacancies. The Department of Labour collates and interprets a range of data on the labour market and the wider economy, as a contribution to social and economic planning.
• Informal ongoing consultation with employer and employee organisations on the operation of Work and Income takes place at the local level. There is also a formal advisory committee with employer and employee representation that has a role in advising on policies relating to the employment of women.

This Convention is not applicable to Tokelau.

Ratified - 3 December 1949

Total ratifications - 85

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