WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3969/97 by Alexandros ALAVANOS to the Commission. Unemployment among young people with further vocational training
Date: 1997-12-12
Institutions: ALAVANOS, European Parliament
Subjects: EU employment policy, Eurostat, Greece, fight against unemployment, length of studies, level of education, social survey, unemployment, youth unemployment

C 196/44

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

22. 6. 98

(98/C 196/61)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3969/97

by Alexandros Alavanos (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(12 December 1997)

Subject: Unemployment among young people with further vocational training

Research findings published in Eurostat (No 6897/6-1097) show that the unemployment rate in Greece for young
people with further vocational training is higher (20%) than that for those who have only received basic training,
(14.3%) whereas the average rates for the European Union are 11.5% and 23.5% respectively.

As these figures show the futility of further vocational training in Greece, will the Commission assess the causes
of this (cid:145)paradoxical(cid:146) phenomenon?

Answer given by Mr Flynn on behalf of the Commission

(2 February 1998)

The Commission is aware of the fact that the correlation between unemployment rate and level of training is not
the  same  throughout  the  Community.  Greece  and  Portugal  are  two  Member  States  where  a  higher  level  of
training does not reduce the risk of unemployment as appreciably as it does in the others. In both those Member
States this situation does not appear to be peculiar to young people, but also applies to young adults of working
age (25-49 years), especially men. This is illustrated in, for example, the report on (cid:145)Employment in Europe ›
1996(cid:146), which is being sent directly to the Honourable Member and to the Secretariat of the European Parliament.

Nevertheless, the relative worsening of the employment situation of persons with higher-level qualifications is a
phenomenon which is observed in many Member States and can be explained by several factors. The sharp rise
in participation in education and training and the increasing length of studies in all Member States over the past
decade are liable to make it more difficult to absorb new generations with a higher level of training into the
labour  market,  if  the  market(cid:146)s  demand  for  skills  and  qualifications  does  not  develop  accordingly.  The  job
structure trends associated with the progressive transformation of the European economy into a services and
highly-skilled activities economy do give reason to believe that these difficulties are temporary, particularly in
the case of young persons with further vocational training qualifications, but this transformation is not taking
place at the same rate throughout the Community, and it is possible that Greece and other southern European
Member States still have a relatively large proportion of more traditional activities and jobs.

The relatively high employment rate for young persons with further training may also reflect the fact that their
training  is  not  really  consistent  with  employers(cid:146)  expectations  and  job  requirements.  Here  too,  everything
suggests that this problem is not confined to Greece, although it is possible that this country has a greater deficit
than other Member States in higher vocational training compared with university training in the more traditional
subjects.

In  any  event,  this  is  an  important  question  that  must  be  taken  into  account  in  all  of  the  analyses  which  the
Commission will carry out in monitoring implementation of the employment guidelines.

(98/C 196/62)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3972/97

by Gianni Tamino (V) to the Commission

(12 December 1997)

Subject: Contracts and environmental impact assessment of the (cid:145)Cispadana(cid:146) road

It  was  reported  in  the  Italian  press  ((cid:145)La  Nuova  Ferrara(cid:146)  of  1  November  1997)  that  the  contract  office  of  the
National Roads Authority in Rome has begun to carry out the contracting procedure for the first stage of the
second section of the (cid:145)Cispadana(cid:146) road. It is a short section of 3.7 km in the municipality of S. Agostino (FE) and
will cost 38 billion lire. The whole project would consist of a highway without any level crossings of a total
length of 24.7 km (only the section in the province of Ferrara). It was designed about 30 years ago and has neither
been updated nor adapted to take into account changes that have taken place in the area, such as a viaduct going