Brussels, 13/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 13 September, the European Commission proposed to allocate €5.3 million from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) to workers made redundant in Germany, and €7.4 million for former employees of a Danish wind turbine manufacturer. In both cases, the main cause of the job losses was cited as being “changes in world trade patterns”.
In the first case, financial support is for 2,103 German former employees of the printing machine manufacturer Manroland AG and of three of its subsidiaries and suppliers in order to help them find “new job opportunities in more promising sectors”, said Laszlo Andor, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. Other than the traditional training schemes, the Commission has explained that funds made available by the EGF could also be used to co-finance a “job-search allowance ('Transferkurzarbeitergeld') and an activation premium to help redundant workers to accept a lower paid job”. The towns concerned are: Augsburg (Bavaria), Offenbach (Hesse) and Plauen (Saxony). The cumulated amount of aid, with the intervention of local authorities, will be €10.7 million.
The second EGF intervention, which will co-finance a mechanism whose total cost is €15 million, aims to help 720 workers in Denmark who have lost their jobs within the Danish group Vestas, the world's leading wind turbine business. Reinsertion schemes will above all be geared to the acquisition of new skills.
The share of EU manufacturers on the world wind power market has fallen constantly over the past few years, from 65.5% to 43.7% between 2006 and 2010 respectively. Despite its leading position, the Vestas group has undertaken several restructuring plans. At the end of August this year, Vestas announced a possible fourth wave of redundancies, this time affecting the United States with 1,600 jobs lost. As in the solar panel market, European manufacturers are faced with growing competition from Chinese players. (JK/transl.jl).