Labour Market Policies and Regulations

Access to well-paid decent work can greatly reduce the vulnerability of individuals and their families. Access to decent and well-paid work by adults reduces the necessity for children to work and thus frees them up to take advantage of educational opportunities. The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Youth Development oversees national employment policies and programmes that promote employment growth as a national priority. The National Employment Policy (2007) operationalised through the National Employment Creation Programme aims to enable all participants in the labour force to obtain full and productive employment, and to ensure equal access to decent employment opportunities for men and women, including vulnerable groups such as youth, the disabled and people living with HIV/AIDS who are well enough to work. In addition, the Youth Employment Action Plan was developed to implement the employment objectives of the National Youth Development Policy. The overall thrust of these initiatives is to increase formal and informal sector employment through increases in investment and the provision of a favourable regulatory environment. A time-bound national programme against child labor has also been implemented with the aim of reducing the proportion of children engaged in child labor from 25 percent to less than 10 percent by 2010, and to ensure the right to schooling for all Tanzanian children. In addition, the government established the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) in 2001, which is mandated to promote, oversee and enforce workplace health and safety practices. A national occupational health and safety policy is currently being developed. The policy will cover workplace registration, statutory inspections, risk assessment, training and information on occupational health and safety, occupational health medical examinations, environmental monitoring, and investigation of accidents. These measures unfortunately apply only to formal workplaces, and thus exclude the majority of the employed and most employed women in particular.