MAPQUEST

European Telework Online:
Mediterranean Countries (MED)

Telework, Teletrade and Telecooperation in the European and Mediterranean context

Telework, Teletrade and Teleco-operation

1. Context

• the linkage between: changes in the nature of work and jobs; issues of long term unemployment and imbalances in employment and prosperity; the need for more rapid and continuing enhancement of skills and know how; concerns about existing and potential future risks of exclusion; and the opportunities and challenges in these domains presented by the Information Society
  
  
• the differences in the Information Society as it presents itself in those countries and regions that are already well advanced in the deployment and use of IS technologies, especially PCs, and in those where both existing penetration and acceleration are relatively low
  
  
• the need to accelerate awareness and understanding among both the more and the less advanced users, to share existing experience, and to structure new projects in ways that will bring new knowledge and help with understanding how local needs and opportunities fit within the regional and global context
  
  
• the intrinsic linkage between: economic prosperity, increasingly powered by electronic commerce and immaterial growth; employment opportunities; and core information society skills, especially the skills of effective group and personal communications across distance

In summary:

• Jobs and employment are dependent on success in trade and innovation and marketing (including electronic commerce);
  
  
• Success in trade and innovation is dependent on finding and motivating skilled people and appropriately adopting new methods of working;
  
  
• One of the intrinsic core skills for the Information Society is the skill of working online with other people in both formal and informal, work and non-work contexts.
  
  
• Most of the existing projects reported on came from EU member states, these were used as exemplars. Various proposals and recommendations emerged for Euro-Med initiatives. An excellent discussion could profitably have been extended for a much longer time!

2. Opportunities and Challenges

It was agreed that concerns by citizens and social partners regarding work, jobs and employment are equally important in the Mediterranean as in the European Union countries. An important challenge for Information Society projects in this context is to demonstrate clearly that the new technologies can be used to:
(a) create wealth and thereby create employment opportunities; and

(b) bring new work opportunities to areas of low economic activity and high unemployment.

A second challenge is to deploy the technologies in ways that will provide access for citizens and firms who cannot afford or justify the full investment cost on a personal or commercial basis, and to provide this access in a context that directly enhances trade and work opportunities as well as awareness, skills and access to information. This means "access for training and for work" and for direct personal applications such as email, not simply access via "kiosks" in busy public environments.

A third challenge arises from unemployment (or the fear of unemployment/job insecurity) in countries that currently have relatively high per capita GDP/earnings and/or relatively high existing use of ICTs. The increasing mobility of work which enables access to new opportunities in less developed or lower GDP countries, also can be seen as threatening to jobs and employment in higher GDP countries. Project examples and research are needed to show how access by enterprises in a higher cost economy to skills and labour in lower cost economies can, by enhancing competitiveness and market scope, raise rather than lowering work opportunities in the higher cost economies.

In this last context it is suggested that both EU and Mediterranean countries may want to participate in the debate on employment and jobs in the context of the Information Society, as initiated through recent European Commission Green Papers and in the activities summarised in the European Telework Agenda.

A strong emphasis emerged that telework is not only (or even mainly) about working at home, and that a wide range of opportunities exist under the general heading of telework and "new ways to work". Working locally is important to all citizens; working in the home may be attractive only to a minority.

2.Projects

A number of pilot projects and activities were reported to the workshop and a summary of those can be found at the site http://www.euromednet.ucy.ac.cy