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Of course, worker mobility isn't limited to moving between regions or countries, it also includes job mobility: how often employees change jobs. In the EU labour market, which is marked by high unemployment in some regions and sectors and a shortage of skills and labour in others, greater job mobility is seen as a way to deliver more and better jobs. "The European Union should facilitate the mobility of workers and the life of EU citizens who decide to change job or country," says Jan Andersson, Chairman of the European Parliament's employment committee. "Workers' mobility is important for fighting unemployment. Greater labour force mobility, both between jobs and within and between countries will contribute to higher employment. Therefore, we should focus on both occupational and geographical mobility."

 

 

Job mobility is fairly static in the EU with workers staying in the same job for an average of 10.6 years, compared with 6.7 years in the U.S.* While EU statistics show that in 2003 8.2% of the total EU workforce had moved job after a year, there are big differences between countries, with annual job mobility of around 13% in the UK and Denmark compared with 5% in Greece and Sweden. There is evidence that "mobile workers" with experience of moving jobs and countries tend to be better at learning new skills and adapting to different environments. "We are also facing a paradoxical situation, where work has become more mobile, but workers have not," says EU employment and social affairs commissioner Vladimir Spidla. "Globalisation is transforming the working environment and putting pressure on workers to be more flexible and able to adapt to change. The current lack of a genuine 'mobility culture' is therefore a real barrier."

 

 

At 1.5%, the number of EU employees working in another country is at about the same level as 30 years ago. Despite common borders and an increase over recent years, cross-border commuting stands at only 0.2%.

 

The EU expects geographical mobility to rise with increasing globalisation but because of the many difficulties in working abroad a key challenge is to alleviate legal, practical and social obstacles to moving. The "European year of workers' mobility" will coincide with a number of other initiatives including transitional arrangements for the free movement of people in the enlarged EU and the launch of a new web portal on job vacancies across Europe. In addition, progress is expected on improving the portability of pension rights and the European Health Insurance Card, already used by 50 million citizens, will be available in all 25 Member States.

 

The new EURES job portal will provide European citizens with direct access to all job vacancies published by the public employment services, which will be around 1 million job offers at any given time. It will be officially launched Monday at a high-level conference inaugurating the European Year of Workers' mobility, which will be addressed by Mr Andersson as well as EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Mr Spidla. Jan Kulakowski, a member of the Liberal-Democrat party in the European Parliament, and Jean Lambert, vice-chairwoman of the Greens will also participate in the launch event.