WHAT THE LAW SAYS ABOUT RECRUITERS AND RECRUITING GENERALLY

[Olajire Deborah]

WHAT THE LAW SAYS ABOUT RECRUITERS AND RECRUITING GENERALLY

The Labour Act is the principal law regulating employer/employee relationship in Nigeria. This law has made various provisions to regulate how employers and employees are to relate with each other, beginning from the commencement of employment to the end of it. It is, therefore, no surprise that the Labour Act made provisions beginning with recruitment for employment and the activities of recruiters.
We shall now examine what the law says about these in details.

A. Recruiter Must Have License Or Permit
Under the law, no person or association is permitted to recruit citizens for employment in or out of Nigeria except that person or association has an employer’s permit or a recruiter’s license. There is, however, an exemption to this. The law will not apply in the following instances:

1) If the recruitment is undertaken by or on behalf of an employer who does not employ more than 25 workers; or

2) If the recruiting is undertaken within a radius of forty kilometers from the place of employment; and

3) The recruiting is not undertaken by a professional recruiter, i.e., a person who holds a recruiter’s license.

Again, there are some cases in which the requirement for permit or license may be waived. For example, if a worker is employed by a company to recruit others or formally commissioned to recruit other workers for the company, or if a worker does not receive any remuneration or other advantages from the recruiting and does not make advances of wages to the workers he recruits, then he may be permitted to do so without a license or permit. In that case, the worker may only be issued a certificate to recruit citizens for services as workers in Nigeria, subject to such conditions as the Minister for Labour and Productivity (the Minister) may think fit and endorse on his certificate.

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