During World Refugee Day on Tuesday 20 June, the European Commission presented a new “skills profiling tool” to help third country nationals, particularly asylum seekers, integrate into the EU labour market more efficiently.
The Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Marianne Thyssen, presented the tool, together with Dimitris Avramopoulos, the Commissioner for Migration Policy. She explained that this new tool sought to officially recognise migrants and refugees’ skills so that their profiles could be understood by all national and regional organisations and authorities and that they could therefore be more effectively integrated into the job market. Currently, almost two thirds of migrants from non-EU countries occupy posts that are below their levels of training, explained Mr Avramopoulos, who also regretted that skills were not being used better.
It should be pointed out that this tool was planned in the new skills strategy for Europe (see EUROPE 11570). Using the tool remains voluntary. It consists of an off – and online web editor that seeks to facilitate the entry of a whole range of information regarding skills, education and training, employment and income, experience and expectations relating to new EU arrivals. In practice, the web editor can be divided into two forms. One, in the language of the social worker, namely one of the 24 official EU languages and the other, for the person from a third country, such as Arabic, Farsi, Pashtun, Sorani, Somali and Tigrinya.
This mechanism will therefore help “an adviser to a non-EU national fill in the form together, even if they do not have a common language”, explained the Commissioner. Once completed, the form will help draw up a “skills profile”, which could then be presented to a public service employment office by the non-EU national.
The Commission also explains that it is also intended for the tool to be flexible and that users will be able to use it how they wish or modulate it according to their requirements
In her reply to EUROPE, Ms Thyssen explained that the languages have been chosen on the basis of those that are most used by the new arrivals. They are not set in stone and others can be added on the basis of migrants’ evolving profiles, the Commissioner explained
In her response to EUROPE, the Commissioner added, “It is good to have an excellent tool but if it is not used, it is not very useful”. This is because the challenge is now going to consist of providing communication about the tool. The Commissioner therefore explained that the Commission was going to present this tool to the Ministers for Employment and Social Affairs. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)