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Cross-border
economic
development
Project factsheets
Framework agreement on cooperation regarding French-German job-seeker placement
for labour is high and expected to grow further in the coming decades.
While the population that is of an age to undergo training or study is
expected to remain stable in Alsace, forecasts predict a decline of
nearly 20% in the 16-25 age group in Baden-Württemberg by 2025.
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In the face of this anticipated labour shortage on the
other side of the Rhine, the use of French workers
is likely to become a significant aspect in bilateral
relations.
What are the difficulties?
In spite of these divergent demographic dynamics,
Germany has
become less attractive as a destination for the working population in
the French border region
(down 20% since 1999,
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then a stagnation
of flows) and has been overtaken by North-West Switzerland. This can
be ascribed to higher wages in Switzerland, but also the destruction
of low-skilled jobs and the gradual tertiarisation of the German labour
market, which directly affect the population in Alsace, the majority of
whom are qualified to the vocational CAP-BEP
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level. In addition, the
decline in the command of German has encouraged German employers
to favour the hiring of skilled workers from Southern Europe, in spite
of the geographical proximity of French workers.
What responses have been
provided?
France’s public employment agency, Pôle Emploi, and Germany’s
Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit) have been
working together for several years to improve the cross-border
placement of job-seekers.
This has involved the exchanging of job
vacancies and profiles, dissemination by press and radio, the organisation
of recruitment-meetings, joint participation in trade fairs, workshops
at Pôle Emploi and in vocational lycées, and mailing campaigns to
employers, etc. The French and German employment services are also
supported in their actions by other bodies that provide information and
advice to cross-border workers: the Upper Rhine EURES-T (an information
and advice network for workers and employers that brings together
public employment services, trade unions, employers organisations
and regional authorities), the INFOBEST network (information points for
cross-border matters), etc. These schemes contribute to transparency in
the cross-border job market and professional mobility on either side of
the Rhine but are designed more to raise awareness about professional
opportunities in the cross-border area than to provide personalised
monitoring and support to help job-seekers find work.
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Source: Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Württemberg.
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Source: Data collection and estimates – INSEE.
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Vocational Aptitude Certificate (“certificat d’aptitude professionnelle”, CAP) and Vocational
Studies Certificate (“brevet d’études professionnelles”, BEP)
The signature on 26 February 2013 of the framework
agreement for cooperation regarding French-German
job-seeker placement, covering a three-year period, was
intended precisely to develop this latter competence,
while at the same time making permanent and
increasing partnerships between employment agencies
along the whole of the border.
Concluded between Pôle Emploi Alsace and the regional directorate
of the Baden-Württemberg Federal Employment Agency on the one
hand, and between Pôle Emploi Lorraine and the regional directorate
of the Saarland-Rhineland-Palatinate Federal Employment Agency on
the other, in operational terms
the framework agreement consists of
four local cooperation agreements signed between:
Ì
Ì
the Strasbourg and Offenburg agencies (opening of the first
cross-border placement service in Kehl on 26 February 2013)
Ì
Ì
the Haguenau and Wissembourg agencies and those of Landau
and Karlsruhe-Rastatt (20 September 2013)
Ì
Ì
the Haut-Rhin Department agencies and those of Freiburg and
Lörrach (26 October 2013)
Ì
Ì
the Saarbrücken and Sarreguemines agencies (15 November 2013).
The framework agreement undertakes to ensure:
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Ì
Ì
contractual procedures for the effective exchange of information
about job vacancies and persons seeking work, in compliance
with the rules in force in each country
Ì
Ì
greater knowledge of the cross-border economy and labour
market within public employment agencies, notably on the part
of staff in charge of intermediation
Ì
Ì
information and advice to employers on cross-border recruitment
Ì
Ì
a range of services for job-seekers
Ì
Ì
coordinated measures for an active employment policy, notably
in the fields of qualifications and “immersion” work experience.
The job-seeker placement services have a strong cross-border and
intercultural approach. Their guidelines are drawn up and results
evaluated by the local steering committee (the agreement’s signatories)
to ensure that better account is taken of territorial realities. The advisers
are bilingual and the presence in both countries’ employment services
of advisers from the other country is already an established practice
along the French-German border.
An annual work meeting, organised on an alternating basis and for
each territory (Alsace/Baden Württemberg and Lorraine/Saarland-
Rhineland-Palatinate) has the purpose of evaluating the achievement of
the objectives set and of drawing up new guidelines. It brings together the
directors or their representatives as well as other participants appointed
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Source: Framework agreement for cooperation regarding French-German job-seeker
placement.