- Administration of general labour affairs and services; formulation and implementation of general labour policies; supervision and regulation of labour conditions (hours of work, wages, safety, etc.); liaison among different branches of government and between government and overall industrial, business and labour organizations;

- operation or support of general programmes or schemes to facilitate labour mobility, to reduce sex, race, age and other discrimination, to reduce the rate of unemployment in distressed or underdeveloped regions, to promote the employment of disadvantaged or other groups characterized by high unemployment rates, etc.; operation of labour exchanges; operation or support of arbitration and mediation services;

- production and dissemination of general information, technical documentation and statistics on general labour affairs and services;

- grants, loans or subsidies to promote general labour policies and programmes.

- Excludes: labour affairs of a particular industry (classified to (04.2) through (04.7) as appropriate); provision of social protection in the form of cash benefits and benefits in kind to persons who are unemployed (10.5.0).