Employability and adaptability in the Portuguese NAP

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In spring 1999, Portugal's National Action Plan (NAP) in response to the EU Employment Guidelines had been in effect for a year. We review its provisions on employability and adaptability and the results achieved so far.

Along with the other Member States, in 1998 Portugal drew up a National Action Plan (NAP) for employment, on the basis of the EU Employment Guidelines (PT9805177F), reflecting the high priority given to employment at both national and EU levels. The Portuguese NAP, which will be in force until the end of 2002, was developed through interministerial cooperation, and with the participation of the social partners, thus demonstrating the combined commitment of the public sector and civil society to achieve the listed objectives. The Plan follows the main pillars set out in the Employment Guidelines: improving employability; developing entrepreneurship; encouraging adaptability in businesses and their employees; and strengthening policies for equal opportunities. As the end of the first year of the NAP's implementation, we take a closer look at its employability and adaptability elements and the results achieved.

Employability

In the context of the Employment Guidelines and NAP, employability strategies are aimed at prevention and early intervention to fight unemployment. They also seek to create labour market conditions that will lead to equal opportunity in both finding and retaining employment. Portugal is committed to achieving a number of quantitative objectives in order to improve the employability of the labour force. These objectives include the following:

• to increase the number of young people who receive initial vocational training by 10% each year that the NAP is in effect;

• to double the number of trainees in apprenticeship programmes in five years;

• to ensure that 20% of all unemployed workers receive some form of training;

• to increase training among the employed population so that, within a five-year year period, 10% of the total workforce have received training; and

• to increase the number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME s) receiving aid through the "training programme for SMEs" (see below).

With these objectives in mind, a number of measures are being developed, including:

• a "training programme for SMEs" (Programa de Formação para PME) which is designed to help micro and small enterprises. The programme takes a comprehensive, practical approach to business needs, by offering technical assistance to these companies;

• a national job placement programme to help young people at all levels of qualification enter the labour market market by giving them the opportunity to acquire job experience through real-life contact with the world of work;

• the "society knowledge " programme (Programa de Sociedade Saber ), a joint initiative of the Ministry of Education (Ministério da Educação) and the Ministry of Labour and Solidarity (Ministério do Trabalho e Solidariedade, MTS), the aim of which is to structure training programmes, directed particularly towards adults who have had little schooling;

• support for hiring young people looking for their first job and long-term unemployed people, in the form of financial support to companies that give permanent full-time jobs to workers from these target groups; and

• a programme to help young people get into the labour market, focusing on coordinated development of all forms of initial vocational training.

Adaptability

The NAP sets out strategies for promoting adaptability and sustained employment through "proactive", preventative measures, which are designed both to stimulate the creation of more highly-skilled jobs and to strengthen the competitiveness of companies. The measures are directed towards both the adult working population and companies - in the latter case, the focus is on modernisation, restructuring and conversion. Important measures that are aimed at guaranteeing that these objectives will be met include:

• revision and updating of the legal framework, especially with regard to part-time work, temporary work and teleworking; and

• a "work-training rotation" programme, which involves companies developing continuing training programmes for their workers by using unemployed, qualified people as temporary replacements to cover the regular employees while they are attending training.

Commentary

The NAP has so far been considered successful for a number of reasons. The government has estimated that 30% of all unemployed workers have benefited from the measures outlined in the Plan. The number of young people seeking employment and the number of long-term jobless young people has taken a sharper drop (20% over a year) than has the national unemployment average. This fact has been attributed to the personalised counselling given to young job seekers, and to the goal of not letting six months go by without finding a job or organising special training for this group (an objective with which there has been a 95% compliance rate). The recently enacted "work-training rotation" programme also allows workers in training to be replaced by unemployed workers without cost to the companies involved.

Results obtained as far as long-term unemployed people are concerned, however, have not lived up to expectations and the matter is slated to be dealt with by increasing the number of regional employment networks. The problem of unemployed young people with low levels of qualifications is another point which is due to receive attention.

Despite these reported outcomes, the trade unions have expressed doubt over the official statistics and stress the type of employment that they claim has been created by the NAP measures - precarious or temporary work. The unions also claim that the job-creation support that has been given to companies is excessive and largely beneficial to employers rather than employees. (Margarida Abecassis and Maria Luisa Cristovam, UAL)