Employment: Globalisation Adjustment Fund provided more than €73.5 million to support 15,700 EU workers in 2012

The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) helped a total of 15,700 workers dismissed due to the economic crisis and the effects of globalisation find new job opportunities in 2012, according to a report adopted today by the European Commission. The EGF provided more than €73.5 million to assist workers in 11 member states (Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Sweden) matched by another €51.7m from national resources.

Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Commissioner László Andor said: "The European Globalisation Fund has proved to be an effective tool to help people who have lost their jobs, and in particular for lower-skilled and disadvantaged jobseekers. I am glad that the Council and the European Parliament have agreed for the EGF to continue in the 2014-20 period and that it will again be able to help workers made redundant as a result of the economic crisis. Also, for the first time, the EGF will be available to fixed-term workers and the self-employed and, in regions of high youth unemployment, young people not in employment, education or training".

The EGF provides funding for concrete measures to help dismissed workers improve their employability and find new job opportunities. An advantage of the EGF is that it can be used to finance measures tailored to the specific circumstances of the workers concerned. Such measures include:

1. Intensive, personalised job-search assistance;
2. various types of vocational training, up-skilling and retraining measures;
3. temporary incentives and allowances for the duration of the active measures;
4. business creation support;
5. mentoring, and;
6. public employment schemes.

The report shows that half of the workers (14,333 out of 28,662) who participated in the 41 EGF initiatives already completed in previous years found new jobs or were self-employed at the end of the assistance period, and an additional 1,069 people were in education or training to increase their future employability.

The results in terms of re-integration into employment are encouraging, given the current difficult job situation, and considering that EGF supports workers in particularly difficult circumstances of mass lay-offs affecting a specific territory and that the supported workers are usually among those with greater difficulties in the labour market, such as lower-skilled or other disadvantaged jobseekers.

The EGF in 2014-2020

Building on this experience, the Commission proposed to continue operating the Fund during the 2014-2020 period. On 11 October 2013, the Council and the European Parliament agreed on the text for the new EGF Regulation, allowing member states to apply for EGF co-funding under the new rules from January 2014 onwards.

Advertisement

The scope of the EGF has been expanded to:

1. Workers made redundant because of a continuation of the global financial and economic crisis or a new similar crisis, a criterion that had already been applied from May 2009 until the end of 2011;
2. fixed-term workers and the self-employed, and;
3. young people not in employment, education or training in regions of high youth unemployment.

Background

The EGF started its operations in 2007. Up to August 2013, there had been 110 applications: 20 member states requested some €471.2m to help 100,022 workers made redundant. Since the amendment of the EGF Regulation in 2009, EGF applications have been presented by an increasing number of member states and in an increasing number of sectors. Further details are available in MEMO/13/988 and the annexes of the annual report.

Regarding the 41 cases for which final results are now available and which have been fully analysed by the Commission (as of August 2013), member states have reported that the personal situation, employability and self-confidence of the workers concerned had visibly improved thanks to the EGF assistance and services, even if not all of them had found new work immediately.

The EGF enabled member states to act more intensively in the areas affected by redundancies, in terms of the number of people assisted and the scope, duration and quality of support than would have been possible without EGF funding. With the help of the EU funds, they could respond more flexibly and include in their packages highly personalised, sometimes innovative, actions and thus devote more care to specific population groups, such as the lower-skilled and disadvantaged jobseekers (people aged over 50, having migrant backgrounds, with handicaps, with only basic education and skills).

Job fairs involving the redundant workers have proven particularly effective, as have actions where the implementing agencies contacted local businesses in order to identify with them vacancies not yet published so that the supported workers could be trained to match their skills with the needs of the vacant posts.

Further information

MEMO/13/988

News item on DG Employment's website

EGF Statistical Portrait 2007-2011

EGF website

Video News Releases:

Europe acts to fight the crisis: the European Globalisation Fund revitalised

Facing up to a globalised world – The European Globalisation Fund

Share this article: