Irish Regions Office Website

December 16, 2008

Globalisation Fund revised for economic crisis redundancies

A 16 December European Commission proposal (part of the 26 November European Economic Recovery Plan) to extend the scope of the European Globalisation adjustment Fund (EGF) could help those made redundant as a result of the economic and financial crisis. The revision aims to make EGF operations, which have directly financed individual up-skilling for more than 15,000 newly redundant workers in its 2 years of existence, more responsive as an early intervention instrument to help more people to find their way back into the labour market.

The EUR500 million per annum fund - a figure likely to be increased - was established to support those losing their jobs as a result of changes in world trade patterns but is to be temporarily broadened to take recent developments into account. Other proposed emergency changes to the Fund are:
- lowering the eligibility threshold for applications for support from 1000 to 500 lay-offs in a given sector, region or single industry;
- doubling the support period to 2 years;
- increased EU contribution to 75%.

Commission proposal
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=89&newsId=432&furtherNews=yes

Posted by iroronan at December 16, 2008 03:17 PM