PURPOSE: to set up an EU Talent Pool to help address labour shortages across Europe.
PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.
ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.
BACKGROUND: the EU and individual Member States are facing shortages in a wide range of sectors and occupations, including in those relevant for the green and digital transitions. Extensive shortages in construction, healthcare, hospitality, transport, information and communications technology and in science technology, engineering and mathematics, are long-standing and have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the acceleration of the green and digital transitions. Labour shortages are expected to persist and potentially aggravate in the light of demographic challenges.
Due to the current scale of the labour market shortages and the demographic trends, measures targeting the domestic and Union workforce alone are likely to be insufficient to address existing and future labour and skills shortages. Therefore, legal migration is key to complement those actions and must be part of the solution to fully support the twin transition.
CONTENT: in order to facilitate international recruitment and provide opportunities for third-country nationals to work in EU-wide shortage occupations, the Commission proposes to set up a Union-wide platform, the EU talent pool, aimed at addressing labour shortages at Union level by facilitating the recruitment of third country nationals to work in EU-wide shortage occupations. This platform will bring together and support the matching of profiles of registered jobseekers from third countries residing outside the Union and job vacancies of employers established in the participating Member States.
General provisions
The EU talent pool will be a voluntary tool which offers additional support at EU level to interested Member States to facilitate international recruitment. As Member States remain free to decide whether they want to join, clear rules on their participation are laid down. In particular, Member States may decide at any time to join the EU talent pool. These decisions will be notified to the Commission at the latest 9 months beforehand. Only employers established in the participating Member States would be able to use the EU Talent Pool to publish their job vacancies on the platform.
IT system
The proposal establishes a new IT platform (EU Talent Pool IT platform) which brings together and supports the matching of profiles of jobseekers from third countries residing outside the Union and job vacancies of employers established in the participating Member States.
Governance
An EU Talent Pool Secretariat is established to ensure the overall management of the EU Talent Pool, including the setting up and management of the EU Talent Pool IT platform. A Steering Group is also established composed of representatives of the participating Member States and is aimed at providing support on a number of aspects relevant for the implementation of the EU Talent Pool. This group may also offer a forum of discussion to facilitate Member States’ exchanges on the implementation of accelerated immigration procedures to facilitate the recruitment of jobseekers from third countries matched with employers via the EU Talent Pool IT platform.
Each participating Member State will designate the EU Talent Pool National Contact Points which will transmit job vacancies to the EU Talent Pool IT platform and notify the EU Talent Pool Secretariat the national list of shortage occupations as well as the shortage occupations removed from or added to the EU-wide list of shortage occupations.
Registration of job seekers from third countries
Rules on the registration and access of jobseekers from third countries in the EU Talent Pool IT platform are laid down in the proposal. After having registered their profiles via the Europass profile builder tool, registered jobseekers from third countries become visible to employers and are allowed to search for job vacancies in the platform.
Talent partnerships
The EU Talent Pool IT platform will offer a tool to implement the Talent Partnerships by facilitating job placements in this context.
Jobseekers from third countries who participated in a Talent Partnership should receive an ‘EU Talent Partnership pass’ which certify the skills developed or validated in the context of a Talent Partnership. Once the profiles of these jobseekers are registered in the EU Talent Pool IT platform, the ‘EU Talent Partnership pass’ becomes visible to employers.
Participation of employers in the EU Talent Pool
The proposal lays down rules on the participation of employers in the EU Talent Pool. Employers’ job vacancies are transferred to the EU Talent Pool IT platform by the EU Talent Pool National Contact Points. As the EU Talent Pool targets certain shortages occupations, only job vacancies falling within the list of EU-wide shortage occupations, the national adjustments to this list and those relevant for a Talent Partnership are transferred to the platform.
Accelerated immigration procedures
The proposal introduces the possibility for participating Member States to put in place accelerated immigration procedures in particular as regards the obtention of visas and residence permits for work purposes and the exemption from the principle of preference for Unition citizens.