Today, the Walloon government reached an agreement on a series of activation measures in bottleneck professions to ensure the reconstruction of Wallonia. The emphasis is on ‘encouraging’ rather than ‘mandating’. For example, there will be a training premium of 2,000 euros net.
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After this summer’s floods, 50,000 buildings today need to be restored or rebuilt. An infernal task: in the list of shortage occupations, the construction sector is number 1 in Wallonia. The lack of labor could therefore delay the reconstruction of Wallonia.
At the end of August, the Walloon government entered into discussions with the construction sector about this. In concrete terms, the Walloon government wants to introduce a net training premium of 2,000 euros in the coming weeks for every jobseeker or student at IFAPME – the Walloon training center – who will work in the construction sector. Furthermore, people who follow training in the construction sector will receive compensation when they pass their theoretical and practical driving test. Practice shows that the job opportunities of a jobseeker increase significantly in this way. The Walloon government also wants to increase the monthly allowance of people with an internship by 100 euros, and it wants to pay for the training costs of course participants at IFAPME.
Finally, the Walloon government wants to bring job seekers and employers closer together by, among other things, organizing ‘Super Jobdays’ in mid-October and reinforced job counseling for students. Employees are encouraged to offer their trainees a permanent contract in at least 80 percent of the cases. More than 1,000 additional training places are to be added by the end of this year. The total additional cost of these measures would amount to approximately EUR 26 million.
The decision of the Walloon government is remarkable. The ruling party MR announced, through its chairman Georges-Louis Bouchez, that ‘a long-term unemployed person of more than two years who refuses two training courses and/or two jobs in a shortage profession should receive a direct sanction’. He is thinking, for example, of the loss of unemployment benefits. The Walloon government, with Economy Minister Willy Borsus (MR), therefore opts for the carrot rather than the stick as a solution for shortage professions.
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