The Flemish employment and vocational training service VDAB and its Walloon counterpart Forem hope to help 12,500 Walloon job seekers find work in Flanders during the coming year. On Friday a new cooperation agreement between Flanders and Wallonia was announced. It is hoped that it will be a “win-win” for both regions. In some parts of Wallonia unemployment remains stubbornly high, while just a few kilometres up the road in Flanders companies are having trouble filling vacancies. Language in particular seems to be a barrier for Walloon job seekers finding work in with Flemish employers.
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Language training and targeted vacancies in an attempt to convince 12,500 Walloons to work in Flanders
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Currently, around 45,000 Walloons work in Flanders. VDAB and Forem aim to increase this number by a 12,500 within the next 12 months. After that the aim is to increase the number of Walloons working in Flanders by a further 3% annually.
Many Walloons are looking for work and many Flemish companies are unable to fill their vacancies. However, currently relatively few Walloon job seekers look for (and find) work in Flanders.
The Flemish Government has made efforts in the past to try and get more Walloons to come and work in Flanders. However, their number has hardly increased. Recently, the West Flemish branch of the Flemish employers’ federation Voka announced that is actively seeking labour in Mexico and India because so few people from nearby Walloon towns such as Mouscron and Tournai were coming to West Flanders to fill the may vacancies there.
177,000 vacancies and 51 applicants
Incentive measures will yield little in the short term. Currently long-term unemployed people that start working in another region receive a quarter of their unemployment benefit on top of their wages for the first three months.
Last year, VDAB automatically forwarded 177,000 vacancies in Flanders to its Walloon counterpart Forem. This resulted in just 51 applications. VDAB qualifies these figures. They do not mean that only 51 Walloons went for an interview with a Flemish employer. Job seekers are not obliged to go through Forem or VDAB when they apply for a job.
Language barrier
A more targeted search for candidates for 1,000 job vacancies should yield better results in the coming months. There are currently 18,000 vacancies for positions in Flanders on the Forem website. VDAB will also make 500 training places available to Walloon job seekers.
Language training is also part of the new cooperation agreement. Language issues (the inability to speak and/or understand Dutch) is the currently main stumbling block today to Walloon job seekers seeking work in Flanders. 60% percent of Walloon job seekers that do not want to work in Flanders give a limited (or no ) knowledge of Dutch as the reason. Language is also a barrier for employers, research shows, not least because multilingualism within the workplace often requires more administration (translation, etc) and organisation.
The launch of the agreement coincides with Walloon Work Week. During the past week VDAB and Forem have tried to bring job seekers and employers together through job days and company visits.