Attracting folks from outdoors the EU to fill its acute labour shortages isn’t a ”honest” answer for staff, European Commerce Union Confederation (ETUC) normal secretary Esther Lynch has advised EUobserver in an interview, saying the drive to fill employment gaps has to begin at residence.
”We’re completely not towards labour migration (…) however we do not need to create an exploitative software within the fingers of employers,” Lynch stated, referring to the EU Expertise Pool, an internet matching platform to attach non-EU staff with employers.
Final November, the EU government proposed to create the software to deal with labour shortages, but in addition to discourage unlawful migration, in line with EU fee vice-president Margaritis Schinas.
”Our drive to fill labour market gaps has to begin at residence (…) however labour migration may be an vital complementary technique of filling persistent gaps,” Schinas stated.
Schinas added that whereas there’s untapped potential within the EU’s home workforce, it’s merely ”not sufficient” to unravel the issue — so the fee’s answer is to show to authorized migrants to fill the vacancies.
Unemployment within the EU is at a file low (six p.c), however 2.7 p.c of jobs are nonetheless unfilled, which means that not everybody who needs a job has one — particularly in building, healthcare, know-how, engineering, and arithmetic.
For the EU commerce union chief, the query to be requested is whether or not these jobs are genuinely unattainable to fill from the home labour power: would they be stuffed in the event that they have been effectively paid, if they’d first rate working circumstances, or in the event that they have been effectively served by transport, for instance?
Lynch believes that options proposed by unions are usually not seen by employers as being as interesting because the prospect of entry to non-EU labour markets — the place they will make use of folks at decrease wages and with worse working circumstances.
”That is not honest on the employee,” she famous.
In accordance with an ETUC evaluation, the sectors dealing with the worst labour shortages pay their staff on common 9 p.c lower than these the place it’s simpler to recruit.
The most important gaps between the industries with essentially the most and least shortages have been recorded in Italy (€4.17 per hour), Luxembourg (€4.16), and Germany (€3.26).
So, on the one hand, pay is among the elements conserving staff out of those jobs, and on the opposite, working circumstances have change into ”so harsh”, argues Lynch, citing the occupation of truck driver for instance.
Truck drivers
There are at present greater than 233,000 unfilled truck driving jobs in Europe and by 2028 this determine is anticipated to rise to 745,000 (17 p.c of all jobs), in line with the most recent report from the Worldwide Highway Transport Union (IRU).
”You’ve got a job the place the earnings is precarious, the place fairly often there is no such thing as a social safety and no safety as a employee, after which you do not actually have a rest room or a pleasant place to sleep,” the EU commerce union chief stated, highlighting the insecurities.
Earlier this yr, greater than 60 truck drivers from outdoors the EU (primarily from Georgia and Uzbekistan) took motion in Germany over abusive working circumstances and unpaid wages.
”There’s a blatant systemic problem of exploitation within the European transport sector,” stated MEP Gaby Bischoff (Socialists & Democrats) again in April. ”This exhibits that the EU measures, that are in place to guard all staff, are usually not correctly utilized and partly not enough”.
The ETUC proposes recognising and punishing a few of these issues as precise crimes, and reinforcing unannounced inspections and the European Labour Authority’s position in figuring out the cross-border dimension of those abuses.
”In lots of member states, the worst that occurs to an employer who would not pay their staff is that they get dropped at courtroom and advised to pay the wages,” stated Lynch, calling for wage theft to be recognised as against the law.
And whereas every sector has its personal particularities, the present socio-economic context locations further pressures on all staff, with housing unaffordable for a lot of, or childcare providers insufficient or inaccessible, to call however a number of.
”There’s so much that is mistaken in the best way we deal with staff, and simply getting an entire new group of people that you possibly can deal with badly till they get sick of it isn’t a plan,” Lynch warns, within the run-up to the EU elections (6-9 June 2024).
With curiosity within the European elections rising and turnout anticipated to be larger than within the 2019 elections, the EU commerce union chief says politicians and lawmakers also needs to deal with altering issues earlier than then, not simply after.
”It is a mistake to suppose you could make us, the working folks, wait till all the pieces else is mounted,” Lynch concluded.