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European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF)

With up to € 500 million available each year, the EGF helps workers find new jobs and develop new skills when they have lost their jobs as a result of changing global trade patterns, e.g. when a large company shuts down or a factory is moved to outside the EU.

As part of the EU response to the crisis, EGF funding was also available from 1 May 2009 to 30 December 2011 to help workers who lost their jobs as a consequence of the global financial and economic crisis.

How exactly can the EGF help?

By financing measures such as:

• job-search assistance
• careers advice
• tailor-made training and re-training
• mentoring
• promoting entrepreneurship.

By providing one-off, time-limited individual support, such as:

• job-search allowances
• mobility allowances
• allowances for participating in lifelong learning and training activities.

The EGF will not fund social protection measures such as pensions or unemployment benefits. These are the responsibility of EU national governments.

Who can benefit?

Individual workers made redundant can benefit from schemes set up by national governments to help them. EGF funding cannot be used to keep enterprises in business or to help them with modernisation or structural adjustment.

How does the EGF differ from EU structural funds?

The EU structural funds, in particular the European Social Fund (ESF), take a more strategic, long-term perspective – anticipating and managing change through activities such as life-long learning.

By contrast, the EGF provides one-off, time-limited individual support geared to helping workers who have suffered redundancy as a result of globalisation.