2023-08-23 16:31:00
Only 51 jobseekers would have applied in Flanders in 2022, while 117,000 job advertisements were forwarded to French-speaking Belgium last year by the Flemish employment office. The report, delivered by the Dutch-speaking press, must be nuanced. “In reality, specifies Thierry Ney, spokesman for Forem, the Walloon employment office, there are 51 job seekers who registered directly on the VDAB site to receive job advertisements in Flanders. . This obviously says nothing about the promotion – which is intensifying – of VDAB job offers on the Forem or Actiris sites, which number in the tens of thousands”.
2022, a good vintage
A few figures, therefore. Source: the Forem itself. “In 2022, our site offered 8% more job advertisements, to some 600,000 offers in total. Indeed, more than 100,000 come from Flanders. And contrary to what one might suggest, a lot of workers go to Flanders for a job, continues Thierry Ney. In 2022, more than 45,000 Walloons work in Flanders and 146,000 in Brussels. Over the past 20 years, 2022 is the 6th best year in terms of inter-regional mobility”. It is not surprising that these figures are on the rise: the job market is tight. The offers flow, especially in the trades in shortage, but the demand follows only very partially. The problem is known and particularly significant in Flanders, where vacancies amount to approximately 130,000 units, against 40,000 in Wallonia and 25,000 in Brussels. “In recent months, beyond the promotion of advertisements, initiatives have been taken to publicize Flemish companies through ‘werkweeken’”, specifies one at Forem. The April presentation enabled 500 Walloon applicants to come forward. To be complete, 124,600 jobseekers received a mobility offer from Forem between 2018 and 2022, and 7,500 of them received specific support to work in Flanders”.
The language barrier
That’s not all. Also in April, Walloon employment ministers Pierre-Yves Jeholet and his Flemish counterpart Philippe Muyters agreed on a new action plan to ensure that more vacant jobs in Flanders are filled by Walloon jobseekers. , in particular via greater cooperation between the VDAB and the Forem, as well as in-depth work on Dutch. “The language obviously remains a major obstacle to the employment of French speakers by Flemish companies, but we have to be honest, a lot of jobs do not require a thorough knowledge of the language, which can also be learned through contact with colleagues. The level of claim of Flemish companies must therefore be revised downwards. It is no longer so easy to find the 5-legged sheep”, slips Benoit Caufriez director dear Acerta, and specialist in the job market. Which recognizes that the language barrier remains a historical obstacle still very present among French-speaking job seekers. “However, stigmatizing Walloon job seekers does not encourage them to improve the attractiveness of Flemish companies in their eyes either,” slips the spokesperson for Forem. Especially since the geolocation of the workplace is an increasingly predominant criterion, explains the employment assistance office. Listen: Walloon workers living far from Flanders are less inclined to go there.
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A memorandum of understanding in limbo
On the side of the Union wallonne des entreprises (UWE), where it is also recalled all the same that there are more Walloon workers in Flanders than the reverse, it is explained that “the first to suffer from the current lack of labor available, it is the Walloon companies that are just as struggling to recruit. Beyond the language barrier, the profiles sought by Flemish companies are exactly the same as those sought by our Walloon companies: we come back to the basic problem in the mismatch of skills”, explains the UWE, which therefore recalls the need to further reduce job traps to activate more people. The employers’ federation also insists on “the implementation of the adapted support reform, and the application of all its aspects, where the Forem has a central role to play. A much more structured and systematic approach to support is needed. Finally, training obviously remains essential. We need lifelong training, redirecting it towards jobs in short supply”, continues the UWE. “That said, concludes one of our sources from the public administration, the problem remains that a cooperation agreement on mobility has remained in the limbo of political cabinets for a very long time. Furthermore, the fact that the two Regions are often looking for identical profiles should not be underestimated, which makes the subject sensitive”. Contacted, the office of the Minister of Employment Christie Morreale (PS) did not respond.
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