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Algeria
LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT
Algeria's rapidly growing labor force of about 5.5 million unskilled
agricultural laborers and semiskilled workers in the early 1990s
accurately reflected the high rate of population growth. More
than 50 percent of the labor force were between fifteen and thirty-four
years old. Almost 40 percent of the labor force either had no
formal education or had not finished primary school; 20 percent
of the labor force had completed secondary school or beyond. Women
officially constituted only just over 7 percent of the labor force,
but that figure did not take into account women working in agriculture.
Unskilled laborers constituted 39 percent of the total active
work force, but nonprofessional skilled workers, such as carpenters,
electricians, and plumbers, were in short supply because most
tended to migrate to Europe. The Bendjedid government tried without
much success to entice them to return to their homeland to help
the domestic economy--even at the expense of losing their foreign-exchange
remittances. Algerian remittances, however, have always been much
lower than those of other Maghrib
(see Glossary) emigrants. Although Algerian workers in France
and other EC countries outnumbered other North Africans, their
annual remittances were estimated at US$350 million, whereas nonAlgerian
transfers amounted to US$2 billion.
The labor force grew at an annual average rate of 4 percent between
1985 and 1990, but the growth in employment has lagged seriously.
The result has been acute unemployment and underemployment. Official
estimates put the 1990 unemployment rate at 26 percent. (Official
figures tended to underestimate actual unemployment because they
counted only those males actively seeking work.) In 1990 almost
65 percent of all the unemployed were fifteen to twenty-four years
old, raising the unemployment rate within this age bracket to
41 percent. Recognizing that the country's demographics would
make youth unemployment a thorny social problem, in 1988 the government
established the Youth Employment Program (Programme d'Emploi des
Jeunes) to provide jobs and training for youths between sixteen
and twenty-four years of age. Because this program failed to meet
its target of creating 40,000 training opportunities and 60,000
jobs each year, in 1990 the government initiated two other programs
to help establish new enterprises either operated by or employing
young people. One program would subsidize, by up to 30 percent
of the initial investment, the establishment of new enterprises
by young people. The other would guarantee bank loans extended
to young entrepreneurs.
Two basic salaries, both paid by the government, set the wage
scale for the formal sector and the framework for the rest of
the country. The National Guaranteed Minimum Wage (Salaire National
Minimum Garanti) was the amount paid by the government to people
who were unemployed. The sum constituted what the government considered
a basic minimum wage, but it was not legally binding. The minimum
wage was introduced in 1978 at DA1,000 per month and was not changed
until 1990, when the government and the largest labor union, General
Union of Algerian Workers (Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens--UGTA),
agreed to raise the amount to DA1,800 in January 1991 and to DA2,000
in July of the same year. The second salary figure, the Minimum
Activity Wage (Salaire Minimum d'Activité), was the minimum paid
by the government to its employees; it was considered a minimum
for the rest of the formal sector. The same agreement with UGTA
incrementally increased this minimum until it reached DA2,500
in July 1991. In a move consistent with its continuing reform
policies, the government later decided to decentralize the wage
negotiation process. As a result, autonomous public enterprises,
which had been required to adhere to the civil service wage scale,
were allowed to negotiate independently with their employees.
Algerian workers lacked the right to form multiple autonomous
labor unions until the June 1990 Law on Trade Union Activity was
passed by the National Assembly, thus ending the monopoly of the
FLN party-linked UGTA on labor representation. Another 1990 law
on industrial relations provided for collective bargaining, abolishing
a previous ban on strikes and guaranteeing workers the right to
press their demands. It required, however, that labormanagement
disputes be submitted to a conciliation procedure that was administered
by the local inspection office but that also provided both parties
with recourse to arbitration. If the dispute persisted, workers
were allowed to strike after giving eight days' notice. The new
legislation also provided managers with a more flexible framework
for administering personnel policies, including hiring and firing
procedures.
Data as of December 1993
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