8 Integrating labour markets
| Committee's assessment
| Politically important |
| Committee's decision | Not cleared from scrutiny; further information requested
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| Document details | Draft Regulation on a European network of Employment Services, workers' access to mobility services and the further integration of labour markets
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| Legal base | Article 46 TFEU; co-decision; QMV
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| Department
Document numbers
| Work and Pensions
(35746), 5567/14 + ADDs 1-4, COM(14) 6
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Summary and Committee's conclusions
8.1 EURES is a network of public employment services
— Jobcentre Plus in the UK — encompassing EU Member
States, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. It was
launched in 1993 and comprises an internet portal on which job
vacancies, applications and CVs are loaded, and a network of specialist
employment advisers. The number of job-seekers registered on the
EURES portal has grown significantly in recent years, but there
has been no corresponding increase in labour mobility. The draft
Regulation proposed by the Commission is intended to improve the
operation of EURES and make it a more effective tool for job-seekers
and employers interested in intra-EU labour mobility.
8.2 The Government told us that the draft Regulation
would have minimal policy implications and compliance costs for
the UK, but expressed concern that UK job vacancies accounted
for more than 60% of the job vacancies on the EURES portal as
the UK, unlike some other Member States, made all vacancies held
by Jobcentre Plus available to EURES. The Minister for Employment
(Esther McVey) anticipated that a stronger obligation on all Member
States to advertise vacancies on the EURES portal would help to
rectify this imbalance, and added that during negotiations on
the draft Regulation, the Government would seek to achieve "a
commonly agreed definition of the EURES requirement for Public
Employment Services (PES) to share vacancies" which would
increase the number of job vacancies in other Member States and
reduce the overall proportion of UK vacancies.[33]
8.3 As negotiations have progressed, the Government's
position has evolved. Whilst continuing to express support for
the Commission's proposal to require all Member States to share
their job vacancies through the EURES portal, the Minister added
that the UK would seek to ensure that "the vacancies the
UK posts on EURES are appropriate for cross-border recruitment
and that employers have a choice over whether they advertise their
vacancy in the UK or EU-wide". She indicated that a compromise
text was under discussion which would enable employers to choose
"not to advertise their vacancies on EURES if they believe
that they can find the right candidates in the local area".
The Government had introduced a similar provision at national
level, ensuring that job vacancies advertised on the UK's Universal
Jobmatch service are no longer automatically advertised on EURES.
Instead, recruiting employers are invited to consider "whether
they can find a candidate locally with the right skills and competence
requirements for their vacancy before choosing to advertise on
EURES".[34]
8.4 Last November, we agreed to grant a scrutiny
waiver to enable the Government to support a General Approach
at the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs
(EPSCO) Council on 1 December. The Minister subsequently provided
a copy of the General Approach which includes new provisions allowing
employers to limit the number of job vacancies they advertise
on EURES, as well as two new (discretionary) exceptions to the
requirement to advertise job vacancies on EURES, the first relating
to certain categories of traineeships and apprenticeships, the
second to job vacancies forming part of a Member State's active
labour market policies.
8.5 We sought further information on these new provisions
and on the scale of reduction in the number of UK job vacancies
made available to the EURES portal, following the Prime Minister's
announcement last July that he would seek to "cut back the
number of vacancies posted on this portal by more than 500,000".
8.6 We note the reduction already achieved in
the number of UK job vacancies advertised on the EURES job portal.
The inclusion of new provisions on employer flexibility in Article
14(1)(a) of the Council's General Approach is likely to reinforce
this trend. The Minister tells us that it will be for employers
to decide whether or not they wish to advertise their job vacancies
on the EURES portal and that they "will not have to document
the reason" behind their decision. We are not convinced that
the flexibility given to employers under Article 14(1)(a) is as
great as the Minister appears to suggest. The requirement that
a decision not to advertise on EURES should be "duly justified
on the basis of the skills and competence requirements related
to the job" implies that there has to be some formal objective
assessment underpinning the decision. We urge the Minister to
ensure that the obligations imposed on employers by Article 14,
and how they are to be discharged, are made clear in the final
text.
8.7 The Minister indicates that the UK is unlikely
to make use of the two new (discretionary) exceptions to
the requirement to advertise job vacancies on EURES. We ask her
to inform us if she considers there to be any prospect of this
changing.
8.8 We look forward to receiving regular updates
on developments within the European Parliament and on trilogue
negotiations, once underway, as well as further details of the
scale of the reduction in the number of UK job vacancies made
available to the EURES portal once the Government has carried
out a more in-depth analysis of the figures. Meanwhile, the draft
Regulation remains under scrutiny.
Full details of the documents:
Draft Regulation on a European network of Employment Services,
workers' access to mobility services and the further integration
of labour markets: (35746), 5567/14 + ADDs 1-4, COM(14) 6.
Background
8.9 The draft Regulation would:
· expand the EURES network to include a
broader range of providers of employment services (EURES Partners);
· increase the number of job vacancies and
CVs made available to the EURES portal, include information on
apprenticeships and traineeships, and provide for the development
of an automated job matching service;
· specify the employment and mobility support
services that should be made available to employers and job-seekers;
and
· strengthen the requirement to exchange
information on labour shortages and surpluses across the EU, living
and working conditions, and other employment-related matters.
8.10 Until recently, all Jobcentre Plus job vacancies
have been made available to the EURES portal. One of the Government's
negotiating objectives has been to achieve a more equitable share
of job vacancies advertised by Member States on the EURES portal,
thereby reducing the disproportionate number of UK vacancies.
Article 14 of the Commission's original proposal sought to address
this concern by requiring Member States' public employment services
and their EURES Partners to make all of their job vacancies
available to the EURES portal without making "any distinction
according to the nature and duration of contracts nor the recruitment
intentions of employers". A limited exception was made for
job vacancies "which due to their nature or to national rules
are only open to citizens of a specific country".[35]
8.11 We understood that the Government supported
the thrust of Article 14, not least because it would require all
Member States to advertise their job vacancies as extensively
as the UK whilst also increasing opportunities for UK jobseekers
to obtain employment in another Member State. However, an article
by the Prime Minister (David Cameron) published in the Daily Telegraph
on 28 July 2014 appeared to herald a shift in the Government's
policy:
"In the past, all vacancies advertised via
Jobcentre Plus were automatically put on an EU-wide job portal,
too: this meant advertising more than a million vacancies across
the EU. We are going to massively restrict this, aiming to cut
back the number of vacancies posted on this portal by more than
500,000. Again, this is quite simply about putting British residents
first."[36]
8.12 In February, the Minister provided us with a
copy of the General Approach agreed by the Council in December
2014. Article 14 (1)(a) requires Member States to make available
to the EURES jobs portal all job vacancies made publicly available
to their public employment services, but adds:
"Member States may introduce a mechanism
allowing employers to have the option not to have a vacancy published
on the EURES portal if the request is duly justified on the basis
of the skills and competence requirements related to the job."
8.13 A related recital — (18a) — provides:
"In order to promote the freedom of movement
of workers, the EURES portal should include all job vacancies
made publicly available, in accordance with national practices,
with the PES. However, under specific circumstances and with the
objective of ensuring that the EURES portal contains only information
relevant for mobility within the Union, Member States should be
allowed to provide employers with the possibility not to have
a job vacancy published on the EURES portal following an objective
assessment by the employer of the requirements related to the
job in question, namely specific skills and competences required
in order to adequately perform the job duties, on the basis of
which the employer justifies not publishing the vacancy for these
reasons alone."
8.14 We noted that Article 14(1)(a) of the Council's
General Approach appeared substantially to dilute the obligation
contained in the Commission's original proposal requiring Member
States to advertise on EURES all job vacancies available through
their public employment services (in the UK, JobCentre Plus and
Universal Jobmatch). We asked the Minister whether she was satisfied
that the new provisions on employer flexibility in Article 14(1)(a)
— which largely appear to reflect current practice in the
UK — were sufficiently robust to withstand a challenge based
on the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of nationality
contained in Article 18 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union (TFEU). We also asked the Minister to provide an
example illustrating how an employer may "duly justify"
a decision not to advertise a job vacancy on EURES by reference
to particular skills and competence requirements related to that
job.
8.15 The General Approach also introduced two new
(discretionary) exceptions to the requirement to advertise job
vacancies on EURES, the first relating to certain categories of
traineeships and apprenticeships, the second to job vacancies
forming part of a Member State's active labour market policies.
We asked the Minister whether she expected the UK to make use
of these exceptions and, if so, to provide examples of the type
of job vacancies in the UK that would be excluded on the grounds
that they form part of active labour market policies. We also
sought further information on the progress made by the Government
in reaching the target set by the Prime Minister of "cutting
back the number of vacancies posted on [the EURES] portal by more
than 500,000".
The Minister's letter of 22 March 2015
8.16 The Minister first addresses our question concerning
the compatibility of the new provisions on employer flexibility
in Article 14(1)(a) of the Council's General Approach with the
Treaty prohibition of discrimination on grounds of nationality:
"In our opinion, whilst Article 14.1.a in
the Council compromise text does alter the original proposal for
vacancy sharing, it does not dilute the EURES Regulation, but
in fact strengthens EURES as a labour mobility tool. EURES will
become more effective and targeted because its vacancies will
be more suitable for people wishing to work in other Member States.
The amendment is important because of the way our system is set
up compared to the systems of many other Member States. They have
internal systems to allow them to prioritise jobs for local recruitment,
whereas our digital by default system means that practically all
our jobs were available online and therefore were eligible to
be advertised on EURES. Article 14.1.a and the accompanying Recital
18(a) recognise that the UK needed to introduce a mechanism that
essentially brings us in line with other Member States, promoting
to employers that they should try to fill vacancies with local
jobseekers, but giving them the option to recruit abroad as well.
"The draft Regulation intends to implement
the requirement in Article 46 of the Treaty on the Functioning
of the European Union to adopt measures designed to facilitate
the free movement of workers by bringing together offers of employment
with applications for employment. The existing Regulation and
Commission Decision[37],
and the new draft aim to fulfil that positive obligation. The
UK does not believe that targeting the right jobs at the right
people engages Article 18 of the Treaty."
8.17 The Minister explains how the provisions on
employer flexibility — which require Member States to introduce
a mechanism allowing employers to have the option not to advertise
on EURES "if the request is duly justified on the basis of
the skills and competence requirements related to the job"
— would operate in practice:
"The objective assessment that should be
carried out by employers is expanded upon in Recital 18(a) of
the General Approach. It describes how employers should base their
decision on where they advertise their vacancies on whether they
think they can find the candidates with the right skills and competencies
to perform the job duties in the local area. This encourages employers
to recruit local jobseekers, but equally gives them the opportunity
to cast their net wider if they think they need to do so in order
to find qualified candidates. For example, if there is a surplus
of jobseekers with the right skills and experience in the hospitality
sector, we might expect that employers try to recruit from this
pool before advertising abroad. This decision is up to the employer,
who will not have to document the reason behind where they chose
to advertise. They will also, of course, be bound by their obligations
under the Equality Act 2010 not to discriminate against people
due to their nationality, ethnic or national origins."
8.18 Turning to the two new discretionary exceptions
included in the Council's General Approach, one relating to certain
categories of traineeships and apprenticeships, the other to job
vacancies forming part of Member States' active labour market
policies, the Minister tells us that neither will be used by the
UK as "we do not currently have policies or job vacancies
that meet their scope".
8.19 Finally, the Minister says that the UK has already
reached the Prime Minister's target of cutting back the number
of vacancies posted on the EURES portal by more than 500,000.
8.20 The Minister undertakes to provide further updates
on developments within the European Parliament and on trilogue
negotiations, once underway.
Previous Committee Reports
Thirty-third Report HC 219-xxxii (2014-15), chapter
3 (11 February 2015); Twenty-second Report HC 219-xxi (2014-15),
chapter 5 (26 November 2014); Thirty-seventh Report HC 83-xxxiv
(2013-14), chapter 7 (26 February 2014); and Forty-seventh Report
HC 83-xlii (2013-14), chapter 6 (30 April 2014).
33 Letter of 15 April 2014 from the Minister for Employment
to the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee. Back
34
Letter of 21 November 2014 from the Minister for Employment to
the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee. Back
35
Article 14(2) of the draft Regulation. Back
36
Article entitled David Cameron: We're building an immigration
system that puts Britain first. Back
37
The Minister's letter refers to Regulation 492/2011 which provides
for the exchange of information on job vacancies and job applications,
and to Commission Decision 2012/733/EU concerning the operation
of the EURES network. The draft Regulation, if adopted, would
repeal the relevant provisions of the 2011 Regulation and the
Commission Decision. Back
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