Brussels, 17/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 15 February, the European Commission proposed to grant Spain aid of €1.6 million from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) to help 1,138 workers made redundant in the construction sector. This money, which has been requested by the Spanish authorities, will help to support the former workers from 513 SMEs in the construction sector in the region of the Community of Valencia to find new jobs.
The proposal has now been put to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers for approval.
In Europe, and in Spain in particular, the construction sector has collapsed due to a drop in private investments as a result of the economic and financial crisis, and the employment situation has grown much worse. In 2010, redundancies in the construction sector accounted for 28.18% of the total number of jobs lost in the Community of Valencia, compared to just 6.3% in 2007.
The assistance of the EGF, which will help the 1,138 redundant Spanish workers, targets a specific objective: to help people who have lost their jobs due to the effects of globalisation to get back onto the employment market. In order to do this, the fund provides, amongst other things, personalised advice, including careers advice, a skills assessment and reclassification, mentoring, training and redeployment to other sectors.
Since its creation, the fund has positively responded to 97 requests for assistance, benefiting nearly 89,000 workers, for a total amount of €451.4 million. (SD, stag/transl.fl)