The Essentials | The Solemn Commitment | The Tunisian Press

The Tunisian labor market is characterized by a structural imbalance resulting in a high unemployment rate and the development of precarious employment that has worsened since 2011. Throughout the past decade, job creation has decreased and unemployment has skyrocketed, especially for university graduates. Illegal migration and brain drain have also increased. Informal employment is significant. It goes hand in hand with precarity, low incomes, lack of social protection, instability, and devaluation of human capital. This precarity is the root cause of a low productivity economy that mainly generates vulnerable jobs. According to World Bank indicators, productivity has only increased by 2.5% over the past decade, below levels achieved in MENA region countries and emerging economies of the European Union. Precarious employment is the result of a multitude of policies affecting labor supply and demand. Long-term solutions require deeper reforms of the labor market, including improving the business environment, structural transformation of the economy, revising the legal framework and institutions, aligning the working conditions of the public and private sectors, and developing the private sector, etc. The forms of employment that have emerged over the past decade (outsourcing, fixed-term contracts, informal…) do not offer decent working conditions. While regular employment can also suffer from a lack of decent work, these deficits are even more pronounced for atypical forms of employment, especially disguised employment relationships. Acute vulnerability to unemployment and income loss and the lack of social protection in case of unemployment are problems exacerbated by the atypical nature of employment. These vulnerabilities are often heightened in times of crisis, with temporary and interim workers most exposed to non-renewal of their contracts and workers in precarious jobs finding themselves unemployed without any social protection. The major challenge, regarding all these forms, lies in addressing two obvious questions: how to ensure decent working conditions in these different forms of employment and what mechanisms should be put in place to ensure their protection in times of crises and in the long term. It is important, for all forms of employment, to ensure good application of existing labor laws and regulations. The respect and effective application of all legal and regulatory measures and provisions by various stakeholders not only enable the proper functioning of employment market mechanisms and components and protection, but also facilitate the transition of the economy and labor market from informality to formality. To achieve this, the Labor Code must be revised and its provisions correctly applied for all forms of employment. It is in this context that the government announced, on the President’s instructions, the ban on subcontracting contracts in the public and private sectors. This is a solemn commitment by the Executive to end “indecent” work or employment precarity.