#Eures network: Helping people to find a job in another EU country

Despite high unemployment in many parts of Europe, few Europeans look for work in another EU country. This is partly because of the difficulty of finding a job abroad. The European network of Employment Services (Eures) was launched in 1993 to help with this. MEPs debate it on Wednesday 24 February and vote on it the following day. Watch the video to find out what services Eures can offer.

Lack of labour mobility

Language barriers and the difficulty of finding a job abroad means relatively few people in Europe move to another member state for work. Every year only 0,29% of people do so in the EU (excluding Croatia), while in Australia 1,5% move between the eight states for a job and in the US 2,4% of workers cross state lines for employment, according to an OECD study published in March 2012. In total only 7,5 million out of 241 million European workers - about 3,1% - has a job in another EU country.

Eures

Eures was set up to facilitate the free movement of workers within the EU, Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein and Switzerland. The network coordinated by the European Commission helps employers wanting to recruit workers from other countries.

Eures has a database containing 235,000 CVs as well as more than one million vacancies from about 6,000 employers.

New proposals

New legislation aims to make it easier to find work abroad by improving the Eures network, creating the largest possible pool of job vacancies and CVs in the EU and making it easier to match them. The plans also cover apprenticeships and traineeships and set out to facilitate the exchange of information between EU countries on labour shortages and surpluses. However, labour market policy, including all support measures, remain the responsibility of member states.

Austrian EPP member Heinz K. Becker, who is in charge of steering the plans through Parliament, said in our video interview: "We want to push hard to involve the private employment services. We want to involve the regional employment agencies. We want to include the social partners when they make job offers. We want to include NGOs when they do so."

Follow the debate live on Wednesday late afternoon.

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