2023-08-30 14:59:57
Clear objectives will be set for the number of unemployed Walloons who will go to work in Flanders. This is what is provided for in a new cooperation agreement for which the Flemish Prime Minister, Jan Jambon, laid the foundations on Wednesday with his Walloon counterpart, Elio Di Rupo. Currently, the Forem, the Walloon employment service, has little information on the number of unemployed people who make the crossing.
Mr. Jambon went to Namur on Wednesday for his first official working visit following the health crisis. Labor market policy was high on the agenda. The Flemish labor market is under enormous pressure, while Wallonia has more than 200,000 unemployed.
At the beginning of the legislature, a cooperation agreement with Wallonia had already been concluded, but it was not of much help. The two prime ministers cite the pandemic as an explanation.
In the new agreement, which should be ready in a few weeks, Belgium is divided into three regions. East Flanders and West Flanders must cooperate with Hainaut, Flemish Brabant with Walloon Brabant, Limburg and Antwerp with Liège.
“Wallonia is committed to exchanging job offers much more quickly within these regions,” Jambon said on Wednesday in Namur. “At the same time, Wallonia promises to devote more effort to vocational training and knowledge of Dutch. To ensure that the agreement produces results this time around, there will be targets to be achieved.
The two heads of government have their own ideas on labor market policy, but are careful not to make big statements, even if Mr Jambon sees an obvious reason for the fact that there are more French people than Walloons who work in West Flanders. “In France, unemployment is limited in time,” he explains.
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