Navigating the complexities of working across borders - from dealing with different labour laws to accessing social protections - remains a significant challenge for mobile workers and their employers in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Norway. The European Labour Authority (ELA) aims to address these issues by enhancing the availability, quality, and accessibility of information about rights and obligations related to labour mobility.
To this end, in October 2024, ELA started working with PPMI (part of the Verian Group) to identify the information needs and information consumption behaviours of people engaged in labour mobility. Moreover, the study will also evaluate user experiences with the EURES portal, providing insights to improve its usability and ensure that all stakeholders can access the information they need effectively.
The study will leverage two surveys to gather quantitative data.
- A pan-European survey will focus on how the information needs of mobile workers, their families, jobseekers, and cross-border teleworkers vary according to their demographic characteristics, geographical location, occupation, and other relevant factors.
Beyond descriptive insights, inferential methods will be used to analyse relationships between these variables, uncovering patterns and trends in information needs across different groups.
- The EURES portal survey will assess user experiences, behaviours, and satisfaction with the EURES portal, targeting jobseekers, employers, and institutional users. By examining portal usage patterns and gathering performance feedback, the survey aims to pinpoint gaps and suggest improvements to make the portal more functional and relevant to all users.
Qualitative methods, including interviews, focus groups, and usability tests, will enhance the quantitative findings by revealing stakeholders' specific information needs and challenges.
- Interviews will gather perspectives from a diverse array of stakeholders, such as mobile workers, employers, and intermediaries, to explore their information-seeking behaviours and the difficulties they encounter in accessing relevant resources.
- Focus groups will further engage employers from key sectors like road transport, construction, tourism, and healthcare, fostering discussions about the unique challenges they face when recruiting foreign workers.
- Usability tests will assess the proposed changes to the EURES portal.
Ultimately, this study will enable ELA to refine its strategies for ensuring that people engaged in labour mobility can easily access essential informational resources. Moreover, these insights will inform future updates of the EURES portal.
