On Wednesday (15 November), the EU Commission proposed a regulation to create an online matching platform — the EU Talent Pool — to enhance the recruitment of employees from nations outdoors the EU, and fill gaps in European labour markets.
The instrument is aimed toward employees who are usually not already within the EU and is meant not solely to deal with acute labour shortages, however to preserve the EU aggressive on the worldwide stage — and to disincentivise unlawful migration.
“Europe is engaged in a worldwide race for expertise the identical means that we’re combating a worldwide race for uncooked supplies or power in opposition to very highly effective rivals,” Margaritis Schinas, the vice-president of the EU fee, mentioned on the press convention on Wednesday.
The EU Talent Pool, collectively with the legal framework for migration that the EU govt hopes to have in place by the top of this yr or early subsequent, would be the means to compete with the economies of Australia, the United States, New Zealand, and Canada.
The platform permits employers and third-country nationals to match in accordance to expertise, however particularly in areas the place the EU suffers from labour shortages.
“Our drive to fill labour market gaps has to begin at house (…), however labour migration might be an necessary complementary technique of filling persistent gaps,” Schinas mentioned.
Although unemployment within the EU is at a record low of six percent, three p.c of jobs are nonetheless unfilled.
EU commissioner for house affairs Ylva Johansson talked about among the sectors with essentially the most urgent shortages: development and healthcare, but in addition take care of the aged, transport, or the jobs that may emerge from the inexperienced and digital transitions that Europe is now enterprise.
Already, 13 p.c of the EU’s key employees come from outdoors the EU, however cooperation with associate nations remains to be fragmented and has extra to provide, the commissioners mentioned.
The EU is subsequently turning to legal migration as a response to these challenges, which can enhance because the working-age inhabitants shrinks within the coming years due to demographic challenges (from 265 million in 2022 to 258 million in 2030.)
Yet there isn’t a intention to change the legal foundation for these employees to cross European borders to reside and work.
“This expertise pool isn’t about difficult the nationwide competence on deciding quotas or numbers for labour migration,” Johansson advised reporters. “It is about facilitating the recruitment of the rights expertise as simply and swift as doable”.
The platform will solely assist to deliver the 2 sides collectively and keep away from so-called ‘mind waste’.
According to Eurostat, virtually four-out-of-ten third-country employees had been overqualified for his or her job in 2022.
The platform may even be voluntary. It shall be up to every nation to determine whether or not it needs to be a part of it or not, and which occupations it needs to add or take away from the checklist of 42 occupations which are at present briefly provide throughout the EU.
The checklist consists of software program builders, accountants, waiters, environmental engineers, electrical mechanics, cleaners, and bus and tram drivers.
The fee wouldn’t give a determine for the variety of employees it expects to appeal to, however Schinas confused that “as many as doable” could be wanted to fill vacancies.
As for the way these new flows will have an effect on nations that select not to take part, each commissioners had been clear that residence permits shall be issued by nationwide authorities and that the only allow remains to be underneath evaluation.
This implies that the legal foundation for shifting from one nation to one other won’t change. But that in any case, the attractiveness of the system will make it a instrument to be used “somewhat than ignored”, and that these are legal, documented migrants.
The design of the platform shall be comparable to the European job mobility portal EURES, which solely works for intra-European mobility and has greater than 4 million job commercials.
