26/02/2021
FSG Internacional
The 2016 EU Council Recommendation on ‘upskilling pathways’ aimed to help adults with a low level of skills, knowledge and competences, and provide them with flexible opportunities to improve their literacy, numeracy and digital skills and the competences to progress towards qualifications relevant for the labour market and for active participation in society.It was foreseen in the Recommendation that the Commission would provide within five years from the date of its adoption, a report to the Council on progress made towards its implementation and in particular on progress made towards improving the competences amongst low-qualified adults, experience gained and implications for the future.
This evaluation takes place now during 2021 and will build on the previous Commission Staff Working Document on the Council Recommendation on Upskilling Pathways: New Opportunities for Adults, published on 27 February 2019, which took stock of the implementation measures.
In order to contribute to this evaluation, the Fundación Secretariado Gitano has considered the data got in our recent "Comparative study on the situation of the Roma population in Spain in relation to employment and poverty".
The employment situation of the Spanish Roma is characterised by low labour market inclusion, low employment rate (30% among Roma which is 20% lower than for the total population), a high unemployment rate (52%), great job insecurity and weak employment protection (large amount of self-employment and low quality of salaried work, with rates of temporary work standing at 70% and 16% of paid workers not having a contract). Besides, only 17% of the Roma aged over 16 have completed compulsory secondary education or higher education compared with 80% of the general population.
Considering this situation, as well as the lack of projects focused on Roma as reflected in the previously mentioned 2019 document, that summarises the Member States implementation measures until now, and also considering our 20-year experience of personalised employment pathways with Roma population through the employment programme Acceder, our main recommendation to this evaluation is that employment policies should increase the offer of tailored solutions to improve the skills of adult Roma, in order to ensure their labour market inclusion.
These tailored solutions should pay special attention to the improvement of the adults’ digital skills and knowledge, since they are key in the present and future labour market. In order to develop these digital skills, the access to equipment and technology should be facilitated to the vulnerable, including the Roma, that usually have less access to them. Besides, we consider that a specific effort should be made to facilitate adult Roma to obtain the compulsory education, essential to get a job and continue their studies.
A first and necessary step to promote the implementation of these actions is to explicitly mention Roma adults and their specific situation and needs, to further establish the elements that should be considered in the drafting of Upskilling Pathways so that they become real new opportunities for all adults across Europe, including Roma.
We believe these actions are of great importance to improve the lives of Roma adults, their skills and employability.
The next step in this evaluation, the Public Consultation, will take place during the second quarter of 2021. Fundación Secretariado Gitano will keep up contributing to be sure that the Roma reality is taken into consideration in these key initiatives for Europe.
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