Mobility: Travelling man

This year is the European year of workers mobility and I am taking its message literally, being as mobile as possible in the EU, writes Vladimir Spidla.

Already this year I have visited Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Poland and Spain, among others.

I am listening to people and politicians to see how the EU can help push for more jobs and growth.

The year is not just about moving from country to country though – it also highlights the advantages of professional mobility, changing jobs, careers and skills.

Mobility is a means, not an end. The aim is to have more versatile workers who can re-skill and relocate when they need work, where work needs them.

My re-skilling has seen me tackling (and sometimes torturing) the French language, but I am enjoying the challenge quand même.

Why do we need more versatile workers? India and China may be distant lands, but the effects of their economic success are being felt locally throughout Europe.

We can’t just look away and try to carry on as before. The EU’s role in all this is not about telling people what to do. It is about helping them achieve commonly agreed goals.

The need to help workers throughout Europe become more adaptable has been agreed by all EU governments.

Mobility and versatility will help the workers, their economies and the EU as a bloc.

The EU tries to help workers become more adaptable through one of its biggest funds, the European Social Fund (ESF).

It has granted €70bn to people and projects across the EU between 2000 and 2006. In most cases, this involves helping people to get into work, stay in work and progress in work.

The way it works is that EU governments agree on employment needs and goals and produce the European Employment Strategy (EES).

The Fund then helps to pay for projects which work towards this strategy’s goals.

So for example, when the EES calls for the increasing adaptability of workers and enterprises, we ensure that this is contained in the programmes set out by the member states.

And we also make sure that the ESF helps that goal by funding projects such as helping women who have been out of the workplace learn new skills to help them back into it again.

But you don’t have to be part of a project for us to help you get mobile.

The EU offers a massive job search service, called EURES. This will shortly be advertising over one million job vacancies throughout the EU and beyond, providing a one stop shop for all jobseekers.

Not only does it tell you which jobs are available, it also tells you what you need to know about a new country, about learning new skills - or you can just post your CV and wait for an interested employer to come to you.

Mobility makes a difference. A Eurobarometer study, which will be published this week during the European year of workers’ mobility conference in Brussels, indicates that 59 per cent of people who 

looked for work outside their home region found work within a year, while the equivalent who stayed put was just 35 per cent. We know that mobility matters to people in the EU.

According to EuropeDirect, the service which answers any question about the EU in any EU language, around 25 per cent of the questions it receives are about mobility.

And the Eurobarometer survey shows that people largely recognise that mobility can help job prospects.

The conference officially launching the European year of workers’ mobility begins today.

As well as increasing the number of jobs on the EURES site, the conference will kick off the events taking place during the year.

These include “mobility evenings” on a European TV channel and in Paris in December 2006, a publicity campaign in the Metro magazines in all European metros, new films showing the value of mobility and a blog on the European Year of Workers’ Mobility web site.
 
Seeing all the mobility opportunities available throughout the EU means a lot to me personally.

I vividly remember being denied, until 1989, my right to move freely.

Free movement is not a luxury; it is a fundamental right in the EU. We should make as full use of it as we can.

This article originally appeared in the February 20 edition of Parliament Magazine.

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