The VDAB? It only sanctions a handful of unemployed people, gets too few people to work and does not put Ukrainians to work. Or at least that is the criticism that the government institution has to endure today. Top man Wim Adriaens bites off – and casually also gives a small sneer to politicians and employers. ‘Companies should be more flexible.’
The VDAB buildings on Keizerslaan in Brussels have been dead and abandoned for the past few days. All civil servants were on leave between Christmas and New Year. With the exception of Wim Adriaens. The VDAB top man now seizes the moment to launch a counterattack once morest the critics of his organization. He’s been having a hard time lately. Sanctions would wipe the VDAB off its feet: barely two unemployed people definitively lost their benefits, claims Vooruit chairman Conner Rousseau. “Quatsch”, Adriaens counters. “In 2021, we sanctioned 24,000 people.” But not all VDAB statistics turn out to be so ‘rosy’.
Flanders has 180,000 job seekers, at the same time there are 75,000 vacancies. Why can’t VDAB find jobs for those people?
Adrian: “It’s not always the same 180,000 people looking for work, are they? In a month’s time, 20,000 job seekers are coming in, but 16,000 people are also going to work.”
Can’t the VDAB do more? Three months following their registration, half of the jobseekers have no job. After one year, four in ten are still unemployed. Those are not good statistics.
“That depends on how you look at it. With an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent in Flanders, we are at the top of Europe. It is simply a reality that there is an extremely tight labor market here. The unemployed are also a difficult group: 86 percent have a disability, are older than 55, do not know the language or are long-term unemployed. And you also have to be in pairs: VDAB trains them, but employers must also give them a chance.”
So it’s the employers who are too demanding?
“(thinks) Everyone is looking for a white raven, but it actually no longer exists today. You can only expect one or two applicants for each vacancy. Then don’t immediately fire someone because their resume may not have the right diploma or experience. Employers need to get more creative. Instead of looking for someone for a specific job, they can also adapt the work themselves. Otherwise they will not find anyone to fill the vacancies.”
Inflation is historically high. Many companies find it difficult to bear wage indexations. Do you fear a wave of layoffs in 2023?
“For the time being, we are not feeling that yet, but there are more bankruptcies due to the high wage costs. The tightness on the labor market is certainly not going to disappear in 2023, so I would still like to call on employers to think twice before they fire someone. Because when the crisis is over soon, they will no longer find anyone to fill that job.”
Not good figures either: Flanders has 243,000 long-term sick people. In 2022, the VDAB was only able to get 4,100 back to work.
“They voluntarily choose to go back to work. The whole paper mill that takes months in the case of long-term illness is not exactly motivating either. The employer must take a more flexible look at what a sick employee can still do and adjust the work accordingly.”
Vooruit chairman Conner Rousseau claimed that VDAB has definitively canceled the benefits of only two people.
“That is pure quatsch. Rousseau was ill-informed. (pulls up graphs) In 2021, we will have sanctioned 24,000 people. In the first semester of 2022, VDAB permanently canceled the benefits of 794 people. During the same period, another 11,800 people temporarily lost their benefits. We sanction more and get more people to work than other regions. That’s not nothing. Sanctions are not an end in themselves, getting people to work is.”
The discussion to limit unemployment benefits in time is alive once more. Could this be a solution for the long-term unemployed?
“That is up to politics. Today, benefits are gradually being phased out. But the system must become much clearer and benefits must also fall faster and more sharply.”
N-VA chairman Bart De Wever often uses the quip that it is not possible to remain unemployed forever in any country, except in Belgium.
“It is indeed bizarre that Belgium is the only country that deviates from this. But that is a political choice.”
And if you were a politician, what would you like to change?
“(smiles) Then I would definitely have a proposal around that. But as head of the VDAB, I simply have to follow politics.”
In the Netherlands, 80 percent of Ukrainians work. In Flanders, less than 3,000 of the 37,000 Ukrainians who are here, regarding 8 percent. How is that possible?
“These are still incomplete figures, but via VDAB there are indeed almost 3,000 Ukrainians working. I think that’s a positive thing, because there are major barriers. 98 percent of the vacancies require knowledge of Dutch, while they often only speak Russian or Ukrainian. There’s really no point in that, huh. In the meantime, 4,000 Ukrainians are already taking language courses with us.”
The VDAB receives a 730 million euro grant and employs 5,000 people, but there is still doubt whether you will achieve the desired results. Wouldn’t the private sector do it more efficiently?
“(thinks for a long time) The range of tasks of VDAB has expanded enormously since 2019, but we are already doing it with 419 fewer employees. It is also not either the VDAB or the private sector: where the market works, we should not intervene. If the interim sector gets 100,000 people to work without us: all the better. Then I achieve my objective without having to commit my people to it.
What is your good intention for 2023? 80 percent of Flemish people at work?
“(laughs) That is only before 2030 — and then it will be a challenge. But in 2023 we have to get one step closer to that.”
