A.—7

Fourthly, it is recommended that each Government should, to the maximum extent possible, provide vocational guidance facilities, develop training and retraining programmes for adults as we'll as juvenile workers, and take positive stops, in co-operation with employers' and workers' organizations, to plan the location of industry in relation to employment, promote the diversification of economic activity, and facilitate any necessary mobility of labour both occupational and geographical. Particular methods of applying these general principles enumerated in tile recommendation include the following proposals:— (a) That, in cases of prolonged unemployment, use of vocational guidance facilities should be made a condition for the continued receipt of unemployment benefit or allowance. (b) That persons undertaking training should be paid, where necessary, remuneration or allowances which provide an inducement to undergo and continue training and are sufficient to maintain a reasonable standard of life. (It was urged by workers' representatives particularly that the principle of ensuring an adequate income to all persons undergoing training was a most important one.) (c) That where a worker is transferred from one area to another on the initiative, or with the consent of the employment service, he should be granted travelling-expenses and assisted in meeting initial expenses in the new place of work by a grant or an advance of a specific amount fixed according to the circumstances. Fifthly, the principle is laid down that employment readjustment during the transition period should take special account of the needs of particular groups of workers, more especially of young persons, women, and those who are disabled. With reference to young persons, it is recommended that efforts should be made to provide the widest possible opportunities for acquiring skill on the part of those who were unable, because of the war, to undertake or to complete their education and training. The Conference also endorsed the principle of complete equality of opportunity for men and. women on the basis of individual skill and experience, and urged that steps should be taken to encourage the establishment of wage-rates based on job content without regard to sex. For disabled workers a number of suggestions are put forward with a view to providing them, whatever the origin of their disabilities, with full opportunities for rehabilitation, specialist vocational guidance, training and retraining, and employment on useful work. More specific measures for the application of these guiding principles on which general agreement was reached included a recommendation in favour of the upward revision of the school, leaving age and of the age for admission to employment, with maintenance allowances to parents during the additional period of compulsory education. During the discussion in Committee, attention, was drawn to the fact that the revised Minimum Age (Industry) Convention, 1937, fixed the general age standard for admission to employment at fifteen years. Accordingly, no specific age-limit was mentioned in the final (1944) Recommendation, although it was the consensus of opinion that in all countries the school leaving age should be progressively lifted. Other proposals of special interest relating to the employment of young workers were those involving the provision of free pre-employment medical examination, the granting of State aid to enable a person whose apprenticeship has been resumed to be assured of a reasonable income, having regard to his age and to the remuneration he would have been receiving in the absence of any interruption of apprenticeship, and the revision, with a view to encouraging the resumption of interrupted apprenticeships, of apprenticeship contracts, having regard to training, skill, or experience acquired during war service. In connection with the principle of employment equality for women, the view expressed by the overwhelming majority of Government and workers' representatives was that, since most women workers are dependent upon employment for a livelihood, their remuneration on a lower scale than that paid to men for the same job would tend to undermine the wage scale of male workers. It was felt, moreover, that the contribution which women had made to the winning of the war entitled them, on grounds of equity and justice alone, to an equal opportunity with men for the jobs available in time of peace. Similarly, it was generally felt that the criterion for training and employment of disabled workers should be the employability of the worker, whatever the origin of the disability. In those occupations, particularly suitable for the employment of seriously disabled workers, it is recommended they be given preference over all others, while in the case of those who cannot be made fit for normal work it is suggested that employment on useful work in special centres under non-competitive conditions should be made available. Sixthly, since steady employment is an essential feature of full employment, it is recommended that measures should bo taken to regularize employment within industries and occupations in which work is normally irregular—the maintenance or adaptation to peacetime conditions of schemes introduced or extended during the war with this end in view being strongly urged. Realizing that " the mere formulation of principles of employment policy does not go very far towards achieving results, and that in bringing policy into practice the employment service has a role of basic importance " (1), the Conference adopted a special Recommendation on this subject in the Employment Service Recommendation, 1944. The recommendation defines the essential duty of the employment service as being to promote " the best possible organization of industrial, agricultural, and other employment as an integral part of the national programme for the full use of productive resources." The responsibilities which the service must assume if it is to fulfil this duty are specifically enumerated. In adopting this recommendation the Conference " emphasized its conviction that the broader conception of the employment service engendered by war needs must continue to prevail; that the idea of a passive employment service, pre-occupied with routine matters connected with unemployment, must give way once and for all to that of an active service preoccupied above all with the promotion of full employment "(1). The third recommendation drafted by Committee 111 and adopted by the Conference related to the national planning of public works. In its preamble this Recommendation drew attention to the Public Works (National Planning) Recommendation, 1937, which urged that special consideration should be given to the financing by loan, in periods of depression, of works likely to stimulate

(1) International Labour Review, July, 1944,

15