On 8 December 2022, the World Employment Confederation-Europe organised a debate on ‘Making smart moves”, which gathered representatives of European employers’ organisations, practitioners and EU policymakers to discuss current opportunities and challenges linked to work mobility and legal migration. This debate, moderated by Denis Pennel, Managing Director of World Employment Confederation, also addressed the recent European Commission initiatives in the field of legal migration, such as the long-term residence directive and the single permit directive.
All the speakers at this event, amongst which Menno Bart, Executive Committee member, World Employment Confederation-Europe; Saskia Hoermann, Policy Officer, DG Home and Migration, European Commission; Diana Stefanescu, project specialist, International Centre for Migration Policy Development and Dimitris Theodorakis, Director, Uni-Europa gave their views on the tightening labor market and its impact on companies. On her side, Delphine Rudelli, Ceemet Director General, highlighted that the MET industries have been facing labour shortages for some time now. This phenomenon has worsened due to the combination of multiple economic and structural factors including the demographic situation, the ageing of the European population etc.
With regard to migration, Delphine Rudelli stressed that Ceemet agrees with putting in place well designed legal migration policies to address demographic and labour market challenges. Against this background, the tech & industry employers welcomed the “skills and talent package”, issued in April 2022 by the Commission, that aims at putting in place an efficient legislative framework, simplified and less bureaucratic in order to improve legal migration to the EU. But the real solutions also come from a proper implementation and enforcement at national level, by the Member States and their administration.
To complement these migration measures, Ceemet calls on the EU and the Member States to put in place the adequate policies to tackle the high percentage of labour market slack. It is urgent to bring those people who are neither in employment nor in training back into the labour market.
For more information, see Ceemet position paper “Tackling Labour and skills shortages”.