EVALUATION / FITNESS CHECK ROADMAP

Roadmaps aim to inform citizens and stakeholders about the Commission's work to allow them to provide feedback and to participate effectively in future consultation activities. Citizens and stakeholders are in particular invited to provide views on the Commission's understanding of the problem and possible solutions and to share any relevant information that they may have.

Title of the evaluation

European network of employment services EURES – evaluation 2016-2020

Lead DG – responsible unit

European Commission’s Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion

Unit D1 - Free movement of workers, EURES

Indicative Planning

(planned start date and completion date)

Q3 2019 - Q2 2021

Additional Information

https://ec.europa.eu/eures

The Roadmap is provided for information purposes only. It does not prejudge the final decision of the Commission on whether this initiative will be pursued or on its final content. All elements of the initiative described by the document, including its timing, are subject to change.

A. Context, purpose and scope of the evaluation

Context

The EURES European network of employment services, is a cooperation network designed to facilitate the free movement of workers within the EU countries plus Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway (The EURES member states).

As the European jobs network, EURES aims to improve labour market transparency by making sure that job vacancies and applications, and any related information, are transparent for the potential applicants and the employers through their exchange and dissemination at transnational, interregional and cross-border level. To that end, EURES provides a European free public service to all citizens, in particular information, advice and guidance services to jobseekers, employers and other stakeholders such as chambers of commerce and education institutions. The main features of the EURES network are twofold. Thousands of jobseekers and employers across Europe benefit from the placement and matching services through the EURES network every day. Trained EURES staff offer support services and guidance on working conditions in other European countries in order to facilitate jobseekers and employers’ choices.The network is composed of the European Coordination Office (ECO), the National Coordination Offices (NCOs) and EURES members and partners. The latter may include Public Employment Services (PES), private employment services, trade unions, employers' organisations and other relevant actors in the labour market.

The network includes around 1000 EURES advisers. The human network is complemented by the EURES Portal (https://ec.europa.eu/eures) that holds 3 million job offers daily and over 400,000 CVs ready for matching and supporting services in 32 European countries.

Purpose and scope

The EURES legal basis (Regulation EU 2016/589) prescribes that, by 13 May 2021, the Commission shall submit to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions an ex-post evaluation report of the operation and effects of the EURES regulation. The evaluation will cover all EU countries and Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

The evaluation will analyse the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added-value of the EURES actions since the current EURES regulation entered into force in 2016. The evaluation will also consider the EURES actions related to the EURES implementing acts enacted to complement the EURES regulation.

B. Better regulation

Consultation of citizens and stakeholders

Citizens and key stakeholders will be consulted to gather qualitative information, which will complement the quantitative data from the EURES database.

Key EURES stakeholders include: the European Coordination Office, the National Coordination Offices, EURES members and partners, EURES advisors, social partners as well as jobseekers and employers in general.

The planned consultation activities include:

-A public consultation (running for 12 weeks in Q2 2020 or Q3 2020, published and accepting feedback in all EU languages, accessible at https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations_en and at a devoted section of the EURES portal https://ec.europa.eu/eures);

-Targeted interviews and surveys among key EURES actors and stakeholders in the employment area;

-Discussions at the EURES coordination group, the EURES coordination body;

-Targeted workshops with EURES national coodinators involving EURES members and partners;

-A public conference to discuss preliminary findings  at the beginning of 2021.

These consultation activities will be announced in the regular EURES communication channels, particularly the EURES newsletter, and social media (facebook page, etc). The same channels will be used to disseminate the results of the consultation activities in a synopsis report, once all consultation activities are closed. Furthermore, a factual summary report of the responses to the public consultation will be made available.

Data collection and methodology

EURES regularly collects a wealth of information from the supported targeted mobility schemes and cross-border partnerships, projects that implement EURES objectives in specific regions or for specific target groups. EURES also collects information on the performance of the network and the implementation of the national work programmes on a regular basis.

These data have been already used for the 2016-2018 EURES activity report (COM(2019) 164 final) from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. The same sources will also help to compile the next EURES activity report (2018-2020), becoming a factual complement to the ex-post evaluation report.

The factual data collected will be complemented with qualitative information from stakeholders’ targeted surveys, the public consultation, the available literature review from reports issued by the targeted stakeholders and an external study that will be launched in the second half of 2019.

In particular, the external study will analyse how EURES costs and benefits can be evaluated comparing data between initial EURES costs, costs incurred following implementation of the EURES Regulation and potential benefits identified among others by the EURES performance measurement system such as job placements, number of contacts to jobseekers/employers, better information services contributing to fair mobility, etc.. This can include the costs of the European Coordination office (ECO) on IT development and maintenance, training, coordination and mutual exchange, financial assistance to Member States and human resources costs. The study will also take into account the additional costs incurred on national level, by National Coordination offices (NCO) and EURES members and partners in particular costs for staff, IT infrastructure, etc.