The European Parliament adopted the resolution drafted by Alexandru ATHANASIU (PES, RO), and made some amendments to the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on quarterly statistics on Community job vacancies.
The main amendments were as follows:
- a recital states that it is important to share the data with the social partners at both national and European level and inform them about the implementation of this Regulation. Furthermore, Member States should make particular efforts to ensure that school career guidance services and vocational training bodies receive the data ;
- the coverage of agriculture, forestry and fishing activities, as defined by the NACE in force, shall be optional. Member States that wish to provide data for those sectors shall do so in accordance with the Regulation. Due to the growing importance of personal care services (residential care activities and social work activities without accommodation) for job creation, Member States are also requested to transmit, on an optional basis, data on job vacancies for such services ;
- the concepts "active steps to find a suitable candidate" and ‘specific period of time' shall be defined in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny ;
- the statistics provided shall distinguish, on an optional basis, between vacancies for fixed-term and permanent jobs;
- Member States shall compile the quarterly data with reference to specific reference dates which shall be determined in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny. The seasonal adjustment procedures required will be determined in accordance with the old regulatory procedure ;
- the source of all data provided shall be specified ;
- European sample schemes may be established, and details of the schemes, their approval and implementation shall be specified by the regulatory procedure ;
- Member States will transmit the data and metadata to the Commission (Eurostat) in a format and within transmission deadlines which shall be determined in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny. The date of the first reference quarter will also be determined in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny.
The following quality assessment dimensions shall apply to the data transmitted:
- "relevance' refers to the degree to which statistics meet the current and potential needs of users;
- "accuracy' refers to the closeness of estimates to the unknown true values;
- "timeliness' and 'punctuality' refer to the delay between the availability of the information and the event or phenomenon it describes;
- "accessibility' and 'clarity' refer to the conditions and modalities by which users can obtain, use and interpret data;
- "comparability' refers to the measurement of the impact of differences in applied statistical concepts and measurement tools and procedures when statistics are compared between geographical areas or sectoral domains, or over time;
- "coherence' refers to the adequacy of the data to be reliably combined in different ways and for various uses.
In applying the quality dimensions to the data covered by the Regulation, the modalities, structure and periodicity of the quality reports will be defined in accordance with the regulatory procedure. The Commission (Eurostat) shall assess the quality of the data transmitted.
The Commission (Eurostat) shall set out the appropriate framework for the establishment of a series of feasibility studies in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny. As soon as possible after the results of the feasibility studies become available and in dialogue with the Member States and within a reasonable timeframe the Commission shall adopt measures in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny
Further funding may be considered for the implementation work with respect to the measures adopted following the results of the feasibility studies
Report: preferably within a year following the publication of the three-yearly reports referred to in the first paragraph, the Member States shall set out how they intend to address the areas of potential improvement identified in the Commission's report. At the same time, the Member States shall report on the implementation status of previous recommendations.
Publication of statistical data: the statistics provided by the Member States and an analysis thereof shall be published on a quarterly basis, on the Commission (Eurostat) website. The Commission (Eurostat) shall ensure that as many European citizens as possible have access to the information, notably through the EURES portal.