Breaking down barriers to working abroad

European Commission has initiated a scheme to encourage mobility of workers by ensuring skills and qualifications do not get lost in translation, writes Claire Shoesmith

The issue of migrant workers is rarely out of the Irish news. Last month figures from the Central Statistics Office showed that foreign workers accounted for about 9 per cent of the Republic's labour force at the end of last year, while another report released the same week highlighted the fact that many foreigners working in Ireland are doing jobs for which they are over qualified.

With employment levels at record highs, many employers are struggling to attract adequately-skilled staff and in some cases are overlooking highly skilled individuals because their qualifications are not internationally recognised. Recruiters are now starting to look overseas for staff, particularly in growing areas such as the financial services sector. Properly representing your skills has never been more important.

In an attempt to overcome this issue, the European Commission has introduced an EU-wide programme to encourage the mobility of workers and students throughout Europe by helping them make their qualifications understood. In the Republic, the programme is run by the National Qualifications Authority.

"With the widening of the EU there was recognition that people were going to be wanting to move more," says Claire Byrne, director of corporate affairs at the National Qualifications Authority.

"There needed to be a mechanism in place to facilitate this."

According to Byrne, the idea was to enable people to access the labour market and education systems in every EU country.

"It is very important because it opens up a whole new dimension across Europe," says John O'Brien, associate dean of academic affairs at the University of Limerick.

Known as Europass, the scheme comprises five standardised documents that capture people's curriculum vitae, foreign language skills, vocational training, academic achievements and mobility experiences. It is designed to help employers see what skills people have by making resumes easy to read.

"If the EU is going to work there needs to be cross-border movement," says Byrne. "It's a simple idea but it has potential to have a great value."

This is something that is acknowledged by the EU. In fact, the geographical and occupational mobility of workers is recognised as one of the instruments helping to implement the objectives of the Lisbon agenda.

Under the terms of the treaty, freedom of movement for workers is a right. Mobility of workers has also been recognised as a factor contributing to the strengthening of infrastructure in Europe's labour markets.

A commission report released last month showed that mobility within EU member states has had mostly positive effects.

Workers from the 10 new member states helped to relieve labour market shortages and contributed to better economic performance in the rest of Europe. Moreover, countries that did not implement labour market restrictions after May 2004, namely the UK, Ireland and Sweden, have experienced high economic growth and a rise in employment.

Meanwhile, the 12 EU countries that imposed restrictions have faced some undesirable side effects, such as higher levels of undeclared work and bogus self-employed work.

For the EU as a whole, flows of workers from eastern Europe have been lower than expected and the countries that did not initially open up their workforces have until April to decide whether to lift the restrictions. So far only Spain and Finland have indicated that they will lift the barriers in May - the second anniversary of enlargement.

According to O'Brien, Ireland is more likely to benefit from Europass by receiving participants into the country, rather than by Irish people going overseas. While some Irish people will wish to work abroad, he says there are deterrents such as the lack of foreign language skills shown by many Irish people.

Ireland is likely to profit most from the scheme enabling employers to assess the skills of non-nationals.

"We have full employment now and one of our problems is that there are plenty of non-Irish people who are looking for work, but trying to establish their credentials can be difficult," says Byrne. "This new system will provide clarity and in the end you will get a better fit between the job seeker and the employer."

Martin Finn of Inchicore College agrees. "It's great for employers because they can see what people have been doing. It shows them what skills a person has, something that in the past has been difficult to assess."

Since its launch in Luxembourg a year ago, there have been more than two million visits to the Europass website and more than 320,000 Europass CVs have been generated online. The Irish site was launched in December and was promoted for the first time last weekend at the Fás opportunities fair in Croke Park.

This also coincides with the EU's year of mobility. This year the EU plans to spend €10 million to popularise the idea of moving states to take up employment.

Currently just 2 per cent of people of working age are living in an EU country other than their own. However, a recent publication of the Eurobarometer survey showed that 53 per cent of Europeans associate the EU with the freedom to travel and work abroad. According to the survey, 68 per cent of Irish people - the most of any EU country surveyed - believe that long-distance mobility is a good thing.

However, while the Irish like the idea of having the freedom to travel, very few of them actually take the plunge and move overseas. According to the survey, just a quarter of Irish citizens would be prepared to move to another EU country to take a job if they were unemployed at home, the second lowest proportion of any country polled.

So if you're even slightly tempted by the idea of working overseas, then the Europass scheme could help you realise your potential outside Ireland. Go on, why not swap your shamrocks and Guinness for a string of garlic or a slice of spicy sausage!

More information can be found online at www.europass.ie