Training brought centre stage in employment policy

Awareness of the need for a highly-trained workforce has grown in Belgium over recent years, and training is therefore now becoming a major feature of employment policy. Investment in educational programmes has ranked highly amongst the subjects discussed during late 1998's intersectoral negotiations over a two-year national collective agreement. The Flemish government has launched a special scheme to promote in-company training, and national measures will soon be introduced to give workers employed in small businesses the right to more educational leave.

Although the Belgian economy is booming and employment opportunities are improving, it remains difficult for low-skilled long-term unemployed people to find jobs. Another problem is posed by so-called "bottleneck vacancies", jobs for which qualified staff are hard or impossible to find. It appears to many that Belgium must make a more strenuous effort to solve these problems. The European Union has urged all Member States to set about strengthening the educational level of their unemployed people to help them improve their position in the labour market. Amongst EU countries, Belgium scores fairly low in the areas of education and training (BE9803230F). The country lags behind the rest of Europe in relation to the number of hours spent in training, the number of people being trained and the money made available for education.

A National Action Plan has now been worked out to implement the European Employment Guidelines for 1998 (BE9804141N). The plan calls for the social partners to make a commitment to solve the educational backlog.

Intersectoral negotiations focus on education

Business is prepared to spend BEF 20 billion on continuing training over a six-year period. As part of the intersectoral negotiations for a two-year national collective agreement for 1999-2000, employers and trade unions must now agree on a negotiating framework enabling industries and individual businesses to work out the details of education and training initiatives for the benefit of both people in employment and job-seekers. These negotiations can build on developments that are already underway in several industries thanks to industry-specific educational funds jointly controlled by the social partners.

The agreements and their implementation should take into account the characteristic features of the various Belgian regions and communities; federal and regional initiatives should also mutually reinforce one another, if possible. In Flanders, for instance, additional incentives are needed to strengthen the apprenticeship system of part-time work combined with part-time learning, which provides part-time jobs for only half the young people interested in an apprenticeship. In addition, training bodies - in particular the Flemish Employment Board (Vlaamse Dienst voor Arbeidsbemiddeling en Beroepsopleiding, VDAB) - and industry will have to collaborate closely to solve the problem of the "bottleneck vacancies" in the labour market.

Flemish government launches training scheme

At the European Council Employment Summit in Luxembourg in 1997 (EU9711168F), it became clear that Flemish companies lag behind as far as educational investments on behalf of their employees are concerned. The most likely causes for this are a reluctance to use profitable working time for training purposes and the fear of losing better-qualified staff to competitors. However, a low level of in-company training puts the company's further development at risk and may even threaten its long-term viability. If Flemish companies are to remain competitive, permanent or continuing training and education must be strengthened.

As an incentive to companies to improve the continuing training and education of their employees, the Flemish government has launched a special scheme. The scheme consists of labour-related cost savings that are to be used in their entirety for an extension of in-company training.

The scheme means that companies employing at least as many people in full-time equivalent jobs in 1998 as they did in 1997 are entitled to a partial exemption of real-estate tax - a Belgian tax on business property - for each full-time equivalent employee. Small businesses will be allowed an exemption of BEF 25,000 per head, whereas medium and large companies will receive BEF 10,000. The exemption is increased by BEF 5, 000 for each new full-time job created and by BEF 10,000 in case of jobs created for low-skilled long-term unemployed people. An additional condition is that the exemption must be used entirely for investment in the additional training and/or education ("schooling") of employees within a year following its award.

The Flemish government scheme defines "schooling" as the process of consciously and specifically educating employees in organisations to develop know-how, insights, skills and attitudes that are either necessary or desirable in their current or future positions.

The scheme covers the following categories of training and schooling:

• additional training;

• advanced training;

• retraining;

• language courses for special purposes;

• management and control systems;

• "soft training" focused on creativity, innovation, design, quality assurance, technological and ecological production and process modifications; and

• organisatorial training, focused on processes of change resulting from internal entrepreneurship.

The scheme also states that training must aim to strike an appropriate balance between all grades of staff. The application forms will encourage managers to pay particular attention to the training of low-skilled employees.

Royal Decree on educational leave for people in SMEs

A the end of September 1998 a new Royal Decree was published, designed to regulate the application of the Educational Leave Act to people employed in small and medium-sized businesses (SME s).

Belgian law defines SMEs as companies meeting the following conditions:

• the average number of staff must not exceed 50 over a one-year period;

• the number of stocks or shares representing company equity held by one or more large companies must not exceed 25% of the total; and

• annual sales must not exceed ECU 7 million. Alternatively, the annual balance-sheet total must not exceed ECU 5 million.

All employees working more than half time are entitled to educational leave. Half time is defined as at least 51% of the number of working hours or working days of people in full-time employment, as defined in the collective agreement applying to them.

In Belgium, every decree is accompanied by an "executive bill" that lays out practicalities, such as the amendments required to existing legislation. In this case, in order to promote employment, the executive bill entitles 80% of employees and staff in part-time jobs with flexible hours to educational leave, but the Belgian Parliament has yet to debate and approve this measure. It is not yet known when it might come into force (the best case scenario is January 1999 and the worst case is September 1999).

Educational leave needs the approval of the employer. The employer must declare that a course of training will improve an employee's qualifications. Employees taking a training course will continue to be paid by their employers. They will receive an amount equal to their usual wage or salary, calculated on the basis of the number of hours of the training course they attend. The employer will receive a refund (to be paid more promptly than the refunds for regular educational leave) from the Department of Employment. The refund will cover half the payments made, as well as all social security contributions.

Commentary

Training and schooling are undoubtedly the key to entering the labour market. In this sense, the decision of the Flemish government to proceed from a simple reduction of real-estate tax to focused investments in training is a good idea. However, the new scheme has been implemented prematurely, because it is not yet known what the federal government will propose as a result of the intersectoral negotiations. The BEF 3 billion made available as a lump sum under the Flemish measure should not take the place of the employers' commitments totalling BEF 20 billion. On the contrary, the Flemish government funds should strengthen the effect of the money made available by the employers and serve as an extra incentive. In the course of the negotiations the trade unions should carefully ensure that this will, in fact, be the case. (Peter van der Hallen, WAV)