ES GILT DAS GESPROCHENE WORT (Check against delivery).
DDG Zoltan Kazatsay's Speech, Potsdam 9 December, 2015
Sehr geehrter Frau Ministerin,
meine sehr geehrten Damen und Herren,
vielen Dank für die Einladung zur ESF-Jahrestagung und den herzlichen
Empfang. Bitte erlauben Sie mir, meine Rede auf Englisch fortzusetzen.
Introduction
Across all member states of the European Union, the topic of
demographic change and skiled labour is high on the policy
agenda. I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute, from a European
Union perspective, to this important conference which focusses on the
supply of skilled labour in Brandenburg.
The question of sufficient skilled labour is multi-dimensional and
contains a broad set of issues ranging from demographic aspects,
technological change, importance of a quality training to new ways to
reconcile work and family life.
In my intervention today I would like to highlight first the main
challenges that lie ahead of us: at European level, but also for
Brandenburg. Second, I will give two examples of what is being done at
EU level to promote skilled labour. Third, I will outline how the
European Social Fund can contribute to maintain and further
increase skilled labour, in particular in the context of the recent flow
of refugees
1. What are the main challenges at European level?
At European level
The Commission's objective is clear: to get the economy back on a path of growth and to create new and decent jobs. The crisis destroyed many jobs in Europe – especially those of low-skilled workers. Now most new job offers require a different and higher skill-set than in the past.
In its latest economic forecasts published on 5 November, the
Commission expects GDP growth to be 1.6% in the EU in 2015 and to
accelerate to 1.8% in 2016.
The EU economy continues its moderate but consistent growth.
Nevertheless, we still face major challenges in the mid- and long-term:
First of all, unemployment has started to fall slowly but is still
intolerably high overall at nearly 10%: over 23 million of our citizens,
the same as the population of a medium-sized Member State. In some
countries the situation continues to be particularly alarming such as in
Spain where the unemployment rate is above 20%. Long-term
unemployment accounts for more than half of the unemployed.
A pressing challenge remains the very high youth unemployment in
Europe. The EU overall youth unemployment rate stood in 2014 at just
over 22 %, but in some countries it exceeds even 50%. Preventing the
risk of a "lost generation" of young people who have lost faith in the
system and see their future in bleak terms is one we should all take
seriously.
Moreover, the increasing inflow of refugees and asylum seekers
requires common efforts and solidarity. Here the challenges are
numerous: first, to organise rapid initial care such as housing, medical
aid and food supply, second to assure a timely asylum procedure and
third to give the necessary assistance for the recognition of
qualifications, to offer language and professional trainings for the
integration into the labour market.
At the same time, we are confronted with the demographic change:
we know that until 2040 the EU's population aged between 20 and 64
years will be shrinking by 0.4% every year. Thus, the Union will lose
some 27 million people in this core working-age group over the next
25 years. Policies such as the increase of retirement ages are
responses to the challenge. Nevertheless, the extent of the decline will
make it necessary that the EU makes the best use of the newly available
resources. It is therefore vital that the EU does not waste any potential.
We must increase the share of the population in good quality
employment in order to maintain/strengthen living standards and the
European social model in the future. Unfortunatelly, across the EU the
employment rate is still particularly low for women (64% against 75% for
men or working age in 2014) and older workers aged 55-64 (52% against
61% in the US and 69% in Japan).
The Europe 2020 strategy sets a goal of labour market participation of 75
% for women and men aged 20 to 64 by 2020. Compared to 2013, the
EU employment rate has increased by 0.8 percentage points in 2014 and
stood at 69%, which is still below the pre-crisis level of 70% in 2008.
In short, with our ageing population, we must get more people into the
labour market: young people, women, low-skilled and older workers, and
the long-term unemployed.
But, we must also ensure that the skills available on the labour market match the needs of a dynamic and globalised economy. We face the paradoxical situation where despite 23 million people looking for work, there are around 2 million unfilled vacancies. Employers cannot find people with the right skills. SMEs are particularly affected as they lack the capacity to invest in further training. We absolutely need to address this problem.
Currently, there are 68 million European adults who reach only basic levels of proficiency in literacy and numeracy. Yet, these skills are at the core of their ability to perform in most jobs.
In the near future, nearly all jobs will also require some level of digital skills, yet 70% of EU citizens only have low to basic digital skills. This is not only important for young people seeking their first job, but increasingly, for working people who must adapt throughout their careers
It is evident that we must make better use of the available skills - including through enhanced geographical and occupational mobility, based on more transparency and smoother recognition of qualifications.
B. Now let us look now at the situation in Brandenburg
I was interested to learn that not only the Brandenburg labor market is
flourishing .but that the self-employment rate of 12 percent lies above
the national average of 10.3 percent;( July 2015)
This holds a strong potential and opportunities for the region of
Brandenburg, given the fact that women and migrants can be activated
even further as they display a slightly stronger tendency for founding
start-ups then other groups in Brnadenburg.
But you know too well of course that the biggest challenge is the shortage of skilled workers which has dramatically intensified over the years and across sectors. Unemployment is also a major challenge and reaches up to 14% in some parts of Brandenburg. The share of Long-term unemployed among all unemployed has risen from 40 % in the past two years ( November 2012) to 43.8 % ( November 2014) .
To address the challenge of skills shortages the region of Brandenburg has developed a coherent strategy which consists in an ambitious set of 93 concrete measures that are currently developed further;. Under the motto " Educate- keep - attract " , the strategy focuses on the attractiveness of the region to attract professionals inside and outside and inhance the competitiveness
of the enterprises., the promotion of a highly qualitative dual professional
training and the increase of the participation in life-long learning. This
shows that Brandenburg has a long-term vision !
2) Ladies and gentlemen,
Now let me explain what we doing in Brussels to address the
described challenges at the European level. How are we going to
improve things and cope with the challenges such as high youth
unemployment or skills shortages ?
President Juncker and his Commission have clearly set their focus on Jobs, Growth, Fairness and Democratic Change. I would like to present two examples which are related to the topic of skilled labour supply:
1. Let me start with the Youth Guarantee. The Youth Guarantee is a
new approach adopted in April 2013 to reducing youth unemployment,
and offering a positive perspective to the 6 million young EU citizens who
are seeking work. Its objective is that all young people under 25 –
whether registered with employment services or not – get a good-quality
offer within 4 months of them leaving formal education or becoming
unemployed. The Youth Guarantee also targets the skills gap. Every
young person should get a chance either related to education or
employment.
As well as being the focus of many ESF programmes, the Youth Guarantee scheme also gets support from the Youth Employment Initiative for countries with a very high youth unemployment with a total budget of €6.4 billion for the period 2014-20. This is direct investment in our young people and in the future of our Union. In May, we paid out EUR 1 billion in advance payments to the 20 Member States eligible for support from the YEI. Germany having the lowest youth unemployment rate in the EU (7.3% in 2014, young people 15-24 years) is not eligible under the Youth Employment Initiative.
2. EURES
Second, there is the European project on labour mobility. EURES is a cooperation network designed to facilitate the free movement of workers within the EU 28 countries plus Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
The purpose of EURES is to provide information, advice and recruitment, matching, placement and post-placement services for the benefit of workers and employers as well as any citizen wishing to benefit from the principle of the free movement of workers.
Set up in 1993, the EURES network accounts for approximately 150,000 placements per year (50 000 through its advisers and 100 000 through its portal).
Over the coming years the portal will evolve into a European
interoperability platform for job vacancies and CVs based on standard
formats and classifications, such as ESCO, and integrating data from
other actors than the Public Employment Services, such as private
employment services. Currently a regulation for EURES is under
negotiation. It will be a regulation on the European network of
employment services, workers' access to mobility services and the
further integration of labour markets.
3)
Ladies and gentlemen, let me now turn to the ESF and how it how
the European Social Fund can contribute to maintain and further
increase skilled labour and how it can offer ways of integrating
refugees and migrants into the labour market
. At the moment it is way too early to come up with precise forecasts
about the impact the refugee crisis will have on the EU's labour
market and economy. Little is known about whether the current streams
of refugees will continue at this level or how many of the current refugees
will return to their home countries.
What we do know is that current refugees are very young on average,
with young men and children being over-represented. There is empirical
evidence that their young age is a valuable asset when it comes to
invest in their skills and qualifications: The younger people are at the
time of undergoing training and education the higher can be the return of
investment of these measures. Those investments are indeed
necessary.
Why are those facts important to keep in mind? Because The ESF is the
main financial instrument available at European level to improve the
access to the labour market, to combat poverty and social exclusion and
to improve education and skills – and this applies also for migrants.
It is clear that the ESF can also support, the integration of migrants In
fact, migrants, such as asylum seekers and refugees, are explicitly
mentioned in the ESF Regulation as one of the target groups that may
receive support by the ESF.However, taking into account the mission of
the ESF as set out in the Treaty this support must always aim, even if
indirectly, the integration of the migrants into the labour market. To this
purpose, migrants can only be supported by the ESF provided they are
legally able to participate in the labour market.
Member States may however allow applicants access to vocational
training irrespective of whether they have access to the labour market
depending on their national legislation and if theirOperational
programme, supports vocational training.
Finally, as regards minor children of applicants and applicants who are
minors, Member States can grant access to the education system under
similar conditions as their own nationals for so long as an expulsion
measure against them or their parents is not actually enforced.
Therefore, minor children of migrants or migrants who are minor are
eligible for ESF support under the ESF investment priorities on education
As you see, there are no limitations to the support the ESF can provide
for migrants as compared to European citizens, once the legal access to
the labour market is fulfilled. What is crucial is to have a targeted step by
step approach for different segments of people and thus ensure easier
intergration and a more efficient job and skills-matching process. Not
everyone will become a qualified worker and obviously much more effort
is needed than just professional training. Language classes, counselling
and assistance to migrants and their families, a quicker recognition
process for foreign qualification diploma on the policy side are all part of
the same challenges.
To sum up the ESF could be used to test and experiment a wide array of
innovative solutions which could be applied later on at a larger scale; on
how to integrate migrants and fill the skills gaps on the labour market in
Brandenburg. The challenges we face require such innovation.
Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are living a unique historical situation. A situation which can stir
insecurities within our communities but which also offers huge
opportunities once we understand that creativity in our approaches can
change our whole perspective on so called “ problems”
The successful implementation of the 2014-20 ESF depends on how we
manage to give life to its priorities and planned measures. The ESF
needs active stakeholders and informed participants in order to achieve
these goals;
Your work, your commitment and your creativity, are essential for the
ESF to be an effective instrument to address the challenges faced by
the people in Brandenburg.
With the ESF at your side, you can do more to qualify the citizens in
Brandenburg to take them up and benefit from them.
I wish us a fruitful discussion and a lot of success in your work with the
ESF! Thank you very much for your attention!