Flemish employers and government focus on hard-to-fill vacancies

In February 1999, employers and government in Belgium each proposed ways to match workers with vacancies that are difficult to fill. The Flemish employers' organisation, VEV, launched a 10-point plan, while the government is proposing that older workers should be sought out to help deal with the problem.

The labour market paradox of unfilled vacancies combined with high unemployment continues to trouble the social partners in Belgium (BE9810249F). In an attempt to deal with the problem, the Flemish employers' organisation, the Flemish Economic Federation (Vlaamse Economisch Verbond, VEV ), published in February 1999 a 10-point plan on ways to recruit for job vacancies that are difficult to fill. Meanwhile the Flemish employment minister has proposed that people aged over 50 who are no longer looking for jobs but are registered at the Flemish Employment Office should be urged more actively to apply for these so-called "pressure-point" vacancies.

Despite high unemployment, companies sometimes experience major difficulties in finding adequate staff, and this applies not only to the highly trained but also to those with lesser skills, for whom there is a whole series of "pressure-point" occupations which are difficult to fill. In its report entitled The labour market paradox, VEV advocates a 10-point plan to remedy the situation. Some of the measures proposed are as follows:

• enhancing the value of technical education and making young people more aware of the opportunities offered by certain studies;

• encouraging work amongst people aged over 50 again (that is, by calling a halt to mass redundancies);

• through better career counselling, helping job seekers to find work and encouraging them to seize job opportunities and training courses through more stringent monitoring of willingness to work;

• focusing the training for job seekers more on the needs of companies;

• providing extra government subsidies for training, which focus on pressure-point vacancies;

• using job rotation to help train employees to fill pressure-point vacancies;

• having job seekers acquire work experience by working as replacements for workers on training courses; and

• addressing the needs of the over-50s more actively.

Until now, the over-50s have not been very actively sought out once they have lost their job, since job opportunities on the labour market are extremely limited for this age bracket. However, the Flemish employment minister, Theo Kelchtermans, is now proposing that the employment services should once again offer jobs more actively to the over-50s. They should focus in particular on pressure-point vacancies, where older workers may perhaps be taken into consideration because they have a great deal of relevant experience and are less likely to be in competition with younger colleagues for these jobs. This proposal implies a policy U-turn, because until now the employment services have usually tended to leave the over-50s alone, as employers often rejected them simply on grounds of their age.

At the same time, the minister wants to examine whether older unemployed people could act as sponsors in project programmes aimed at giving poorly skilled long-term unemployed people further work experience.