Brussels, 17/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - As soon as the European Commission initiative was presented for tackling long-term employment, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) described it, on Thursday 17 September, as nothing other than “recommendations” that “will not make much difference”.
The Commission had already unveiled the outlines of its initiative at the beginning of September (see EUROPE 11383). The initiative was finally adopted by the College of Commissioners on Wednesday 16 September and it was subsequently presented to the press by the Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Marianne Thyssen, the following day.
This proposal focuses on services, particularly personal services, provided to the long-term unemployed in an effort to facilitate their return to the labour market. It will now be sent to the Council of the EU. On the basis of a number of “good practices” developed in certain member states (Germany, Scandinavia countries, etc.), the Commission formulated three major recommendations whose implementation could receive funding by amending the resources available in the European Social Fund.
These recommendations are addressed to the whole of the EU because although there are some leading countries in this field, the Commission believes that they all have something that could be improved. It should be pointed out that the category of the long-term unemployed includes those who have been jobless for 12 months, which means half of all Europeans on the dole or around 12.1 million people, 60% of whom have not worked for two years.
Firstly, member states are encouraged to register the long-term unemployed with the employment services. This may appear obvious but as Commissioner Thyssen pointed out, this is far from what actually happens. On average, 73% of the unemployed are registered but this figure falls to 50% in a number of member states.
Secondly, the Commission recommends that everyone who has been unemployed long-term to register with these services for a detailed individual assessment to establish their needs and potential after 18 months of unemployment at the latest.
Thirdly, in the future, a professional inclusion agreement should be proposed to all the long-term unemployed by the employment services after 18 months of unemployment at the latest. The choice of this deadline is not a coincidence because the transition rates from unemployment to employment falls sharply between the 12th and 24th month of unemployment.
This Commission proposal received a rather reserved welcome from the trade unions. The Deputy Secretary General of ETUC, Jozef Niemiec, asserted that “these proposals will not make a major difference. They are only recommendations - no one is obliged to do anything - and there is no additional funding to implement them, in particular for those countries most affected by the crisis”. In a press release he said that while we are waiting for the economic recovery and job creation, “the unemployed are being driven into poverty because less than 35% of the short-term unemployed actually receive unemployment benefits, and over 70% of those unemployed for 18 months or more receive no unemployment benefit”. (Jan Kordys)
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