Do you know someone looking for work? The Vande Moortel brickworks in Oudenaarde is looking for staff: 14 vacancies out of a total of 145 people working at the family business. “Hainaut is only a few kilometres away. Businesses north of the language border also offer opportunities for Walloons who want to work in Flanders,” said Georges-Louis Bouchez and Egbert Lachaert during their visit to the East Flemish SME. “There are plenty of shortage occupations, and our employment rate needs to rise.
How is it possible that Wallonia has an employment rate of only 65% while businesses just across the language border are desperately looking for workers? “The PS has installed a mentality and a system in French-speaking Belgium aimed at keeping people at home and therefore dependent,” says the MR President. “Yet work is the best social policy. Those who can work should do so. That’s why the MR proposes scrapping unemployment benefits after two years. There should also be a cap on the social benefits unemployed people receive on top of the integration income. Someone who works should always have at least 500 euros net more than someone who doesn’t.”
Egbert Lachaert agrees: “VDAB vacancies should systematically be taken over by the Walloon employment service Forem. We could even extend the Flemish employment bonus to Walloons who come to work in Flanders. That could amount to 700 euros net per year.” According to Bouchez, language shouldn’t even be an issue: “13,000 French people work in West Flanders. That’s twice as many as the 6,000 Walloons working there.” “And companies also offer training to attract people,” Lachaert adds.
Increasing net wages
In Flanders, the employment rate now stands at 77%. That is above the European average. The bulk of the work therefore needs to happen in Wallonia and Brussels, where only 65% of the population aged 18 to 65 has a job. The MR and Open VLD want an employment rate of 80%. “That would bring in at least 24 billion euros a year for the state. With that, we could implement a 10 billion tax cut to significantly increase net wages,” Bouchez concludes.
In collaboration with Voka East Flanders, Egbert Lachaert invited his liberal friend Georges-Louis Bouchez to visit the Vande Moortel brickworks in Oudenaarde. The famous East Flemish cycling town lies just a few kilometres from the province of Hainaut, home of the MR leader. With East Flanders, Bouchez has now visited all the Flemish Voka branches. Previously, he and Lachaert had already toured all the provinces of our country.