Short answer. By default, only public employment offices may recruit and place workers. Article 16 of the Labor Code bars any other person or entity from engaging in recruitment and placement, except where a separate part of the same title of the Code specifically allows it. Private recruitment is lawful only under that exception.
What the law says
Except as provided in Chapter II of this Title, no person or entity other than the public employment offices, shall engage in the recruitment and placement of workers.
Labor Code, Article 16 — Recruitment Limited To Public Offices. Read the full provision →
The default is public, not private
Article 16 sets the baseline rule for who may recruit and place workers, and it puts public employment offices at the center of it: except as provided in Chapter II of this Title, no person or entity other than the public employment offices, shall engage in the recruitment and placement of workers. As a matter of default, recruiting and placing workers is treated as a public function. A private individual or company does not automatically have the right to recruit workers simply because it wants to; the starting position of the law is that this activity belongs to public offices.
The rule has a built-in exception
Article 16 does not shut private recruitment out entirely. Its opening words, "except as provided in Chapter II of this Title," make clear that another part of the same title of the Labor Code carves out room for private recruitment and placement to happen lawfully. So the general prohibition in Article 16 is not the complete picture; it is the default rule that applies unless that separate chapter's own conditions are met. Whether a particular private recruiter is operating lawfully depends on whether it fits within that carved-out exception, not on Article 16 alone.
Why this default rule exists
Placing the general rule in the hands of public offices reflects a concern that recruitment and placement, especially where workers are being sent to jobs far from home or overseas, is an activity with real potential for abuse if left entirely open to anyone willing to do it. By starting from the position that only public employment offices may engage in this activity, and then allowing private participation only through the separately provided exception, the law keeps recruitment tethered to a framework rather than leaving it unregulated by default.
What this means if you are dealing with a recruiter
If someone who is neither a public employment office nor operating within the recognized exception is recruiting or placing workers, that activity sits outside what Article 16 permits. Whether you are a worker being recruited or an employer engaging a recruiter, it is worth keeping in mind that private recruitment is the exception to the rule, not the rule itself, and that the legitimacy of any private recruiter ultimately rests on whether it falls within the separately provided exception rather than on Article 16's general prohibition.