Enhancing the professionalization of job counsellors, strengthening matching skills at international level and improving the provision of services in support of intra-EU labour mobility keys to foster the mobility of EU workers
THE RELEVANCE OF INTRA-EU LABOUR MOBILITY FOR REVIVING THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY AND REALISING THE SINGLE MARKET
EU commission gives a key role to geographical labour mobility. In the Employment package 2012, it is stated that a genuine intra-EU mobility of workers could contribute to improve the allocation of resources, create job opportunities and foster economic growth. Similarly, the report EU Citizenship COM(2013) 269 final points out that proper labour mobility would enable to effectively tackle the mismatch of qualifications in Europe. Today European markets show significant unbalances: while in some countries the rate of unemployment is high, others show consistent numbers of unfilled vacancies.
The rationale behind AMICO project lies in the awareness that, although geographical labour mobility represents a powerful instrument to tackle imbalances in the labour market and to trigger economic recovery, its potential is not fully exploited. As data show, even though European people have a high propensity to transnational job mobility, labour mobility rates are low. According to the EU Working Documents (2014) only about 325.000 persons on average move annually to work in another member country; however, surveys show that the number of EU citizens expressing their willingness to move in the following 12 months amounts to 2.9 million, and figures are constantly rising.
The reason why such mobility potential is not fully realised lies in the fact that most people lack sufficient language skills and have difficulties in finding a job. The latter, in turn, is due to a lack of services in support of people interested in geographical labour mobility, both incoming (employers) and outgoing (job seekers).
THE NEED FOR IMPROVING AND EXPANDING THE PROVISION OF SERVICES IN SUPPORT OF LABOUR MOBILITY
EURES, the European service for the European labour mobility, presents a number of shortcomings. National PESs still lack behind implementing proper EURES services inside their institutions. At the same time the number of EURES advisers is still quite low. In Italy and Spain, for example, the population covered by a single EURES adviser is over 1,000,000. The EURES service also scores a low performance in the number of successful placements. This evidence shows that there is a consistent gap between people propensity to mobilise and the services in support of such propensity.
In the other hand there no specialised training for guidance practitioners to tackle mobility issues.
Project AMICO wants to contribute to fill this gap, producing practical tools for advisers in support of people willing to mobilise:
1. The design of a specialised curriculum in “Mobility Job Counsellor”
The innovative feature of AMICO is the creation of a whole curriculum that will transfer not only traditional knowledge, competences and skills for job counselling, but also those necessary to transfer the job counselling activity to a European level. Considering the increasing number of programmes and initiatives that promote mobility as a strategic factor for the development of occupation and competitiveness (Erasmus +; EASI, EURES and Your first job; EIPC; Europe Creative; Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs; Youth Guarantee), the need for a specialised training, that is able to take advantage of these instruments, clearly arises.
2. The development of a tool-kit aimed at analysing the competences and mobility needs expressed by enterprises and job seekers, which will be used by the Mobility Job Counsellor to enhance the efficiency of his/her transnational placement service activity.
3. The design and establishment of a Mobility Welcome Service (MWS), representing a guidance service and a physical point of contact between the mobility job counsellor and both job-seekers and employers interested in geographical labour mobility.
THE AMICO PROJECT
AMICO is a strategic partnership that gives rise to an alliance among the pivotal actors of the knowledge triangle (universities, enterprises and research institutes) in order to translate into concrete outcomes the ET2020 principle “Making lifelong learning and mobility a reality” and tackle the mismatch of the ICT competences at European level.
The project addresses: Universities that can benefit from the curriculum, young graduates or students interested in a career as job counsellors, employment services, ICT job-seekers and enterprises that can find in the Mobility Welcome Service and in the Mobility Job Counsellors an important support in all issues related to labour mobility and international hiring.
The audience of indirect beneficiaries also includes: ICT enterprises that develop innovative services and/or products and that have difficulties in recruiting qualified human resources according to their needs. Public and private employment services, which want tore-qualify their staff in relation to the management and the promotion of mobility. Labour unions and association of enterprises that want to activate services for enterprises and workers in support of training/job mobility.
In order to narrow the scope of the project, AMICO will focus on geographical mobility in the ICT sector. This is a field where the mismatch is increasingly rising: in the EURES Job Market on October 1, 2013, over 40% of 85.600 posts for the ICT job vacancies were for ICT professionals (EJMB n.10/2013). However, the modularity of the curriculum and the toolkit designed through the project will easily allow their adaptation to any sector of the job market.
Get to know more on AMICO?:
http://www.amicomobility.eu/the-project/
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
