Fee-Charging Employment Agencies (Regulation) Act, 1976

This 1976 Act regulates for-profit employment agencies that place workers within Pakistan in exchange for a fee or commission. Section 3 bans any agency from operating as a fee-charging employment agency without a licence, though an agency already running when the Act took effect had a six-month window to apply for one.

Section 4 lets the Federal Government appoint a competent authority with powers to demand information and documents from anyone running what looks like an employment agency, enter and search premises, and take evidence — though no one can be forced to answer questions that would incriminate themselves. Section 5 covers licensing: only Pakistani citizens, all-Pakistani-partner firms, or majority-Pakistani-owned companies can be licensed, a licence lasts one year and is renewable, and it can be cancelled or suspended (with deposits forfeited) for breaking the Act, the rules, or licence conditions — subject to an appeal to the Federal Government within sixty days.

Section 6 lets the competent authority shut down fee-charging agencies in an area once a public (government-run) employment service has been set up there, though it can carve out exceptions for hard-to-place categories of workers in consultation with employer and worker organisations. Section 7 punishes wilful violations of the Act, rules, or licence terms with imprisonment up to one year, a fine up to five thousand rupees, or both, and section 8 says prosecutions require a written complaint from the competent authority.

Section 12 exempts a few categories from the Act altogether: people licensed under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1923 to supply seamen, public employment exchanges run by government, and people permitted under the Emigration Ordinance, 1979 to arrange placements abroad — meaning agencies sending workers overseas for foreign employment are generally covered by that separate emigration law rather than this Act. This is an older law, last amended in 1984, so current fee and penalty figures should be checked against the latest text.