From the law "On Employment" to the Law "On Promotion of Employment"

Abstract

Effective management/regulation of employment and unemployment has always been, is and will continue to be a significant problem for any country in future. We should note here that it is impossible to solve it once and forever, it requires constant efforts from the country's authorities. In 2014-2022, the unemployment index in Georgia decreased to 18.1%, but it is still very high. It should also be taken into account that according to experts estimation, the actual level of unemployment is much higher than the official level (at least in 2-2.5 times), therefore, it can be said that the current situation in the country in this regard is not alarming, but at least close to it. Effective management/regulation of employment and unemployment, in many directions, requires joint efforts of all branches of government, one of such directions is the perfection of the legislative framework of employment and unemployment. A special role in the management/regulation of employment and unemployment in Georgia is played by the law on "Employment", which was declared invalid during the adoption of the "Labor Code" in 2006, which was a serious mistake. In 2020, Georgia adopted the law "On Promotion of Employment", which ficompleted the legislative vacuum in this regard to some extent, but due to essential shortcomings, it cannot fully meet the existed requirements. The main difference between the laws "On Employment" and "On Promotion of Employment" is that the adoption of the new law decreased the degree of dependence on employment and unemployment regulation - if the Law "On Employment" focused directly on employment events, the new law gives priority to the events of employment promotion. For example, according to the Law "On Employment" the competence of the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Protection of Georgia included development of national (state), regional and special employment programs. The above mentioned Ministry's authority is limited only to "employment promotion measures". In addition to the above, to our opinion, the Law "On Promotion of Employment" has significant shortcomings: 1. "Unemployed" is mainly referred to as "Job seeker". The unemployed is indeed a job seeker, but he is fundamentally different from other categories of job seekers, he is socially more vulnerable and therefore deserved more attention. In the same law, the issue of appointing allowance for the unemployed for a certain period of time is not provided for, which is unacceptable in many ways. However, in previous years, in the country, this practice was maintained even in the conditions of a much smaller budget of the country; 2. In the current law, the employment and unemployment process management system is not clearly presented. Issues related to labor, employment and unemployment in the Parliament of Georgia are distributed among several committees. In our opinion, taking into account the supervisory area and functions, it would be appropriate if the legislative activity related to the issues of labor, employment and unemployment were mainly carried out in the sectoral economy and economic policy committee, and the said committee was entrusted with the coordinating function in the legislative direction; According to the executive authority, this function should be performed by the "Ministry of IDPs from Occupied Territories, Labor, Health and Social Protection", even though this is not specified in the law; 3. In the Law "On Promotion of Employment" employment policy is represented only by active policy, and passive policy is not mentioned at all. It is not controversial that active employment policy is decisive in overcoming the problem of unemployment, but passive policy (allowance, unemployment insurance for a certain period of time, early retirement, etc.) cannot be ignored either; 4. Labor migration is incompletely defined in the law, it does not include illegal labor migrants, which is incorrect; 5. The law does not provide for the issue of state regulation of the activities of private employment agencies, which is unacceptable. To our opinion a project concerning the changes in the Law "On Promotion of Employment" should be prepared and it should be submitted to the Parliament of Georgia for to be discussed.