Four out of ten vacancies that the Flemish Employment Agency (VDAB) received last year were not filled. This is apparent from the answer by Minister of Work Hilde Crevits (CD&V) to a number of parliamentary questions from Tom Ongena (Open Vld).
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In the second half of 2021, the corona measures were relaxed, which led to an influx of vacancies. As a result, the filling percentage had fallen to 51 percent in December.
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More and more bottleneck sectors are sounding the alarm, notes Ongena. For example, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a domestic help and many construction projects are delayed due to the shortage of workers.
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The number of vacancies for domestic helpers rose by more than 40 percent last year. More than half of those vacancies were still being filled at the start of 2021, while this had fallen to less than a quarter by the end of the year. The construction sector also saw an exponential increase in the number of vacancies. Since 2018, the number of unfilled vacancies has increased by almost 70 percent.
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“It is incomprehensible that in view of this explosion of open vacancies, the VDAB no longer encourages job seekers to get started in these sectors,” says Ongena. “Of the 80,000 low-skilled people who qualify for a job as domestic help, only two percent are effectively mediated to this job. It is urgent that the VDAB motivates people more to get to work and also takes stricter action when job seekers are reluctant to work. .”
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“VDAB does encourage job seekers to apply for all kinds of jobs, including for the service voucher sector. It is not true at all that 80,000 job seekers are eligible for a job as cleaning help, says Wim Adriaens, managing director of the VDAB, today in a response to criticism from Ongena. “Last year, our mediators gave almost 7,500 job applications for an application in this sector to job seekers who do qualify for a job as cleaning assistant. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to close the gap between employer and job seeker. Only if employers are open to profiles that still have a long way to go, and are also willing to invest in them to train them, will we be able to make even more matches,” says Adriaens.
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