Print 
PDF
José Manuel Barroso, President of the EC, Olli Rehn (left), Vice-President of the EC in charge of Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro, and László Andor (right), Member of the EC in charge of Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, participated in the EP plenary session which focused on the economic crisis in the euro area. © European Union, 2012
epnn – With EU unemployment hitting record levels and forecasts of a grim economic outlook for the months ahead, the European Commission has come forward with a set of concrete measures to boost jobs. The proposal focuses on the demand-side of job creation, setting out ways for Member States to encourage hiring by reducing taxes on labour or supporting business start-ups more. It also identifies the areas with the biggest job potential for the future: the green economy, health services and ICT. The policy communication underlines the need for a stronger employment and social dimension to EU governance and lays down ways to involve employers’ and workers’ representatives more in setting EU priorities.
Last week, László Andor, EU Commissioner for employment, Social affairs and Inclusion presented during the plenary meeting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg the Communication “Towards a job-rich recovery”.
The high unemployment in Europe arise more and more the concern of the societies and of political leaders. From early 2010 with 9,5% unemployment average in the EU it has climbed to 10,2% in February 2012. President Barroso said: “Europe needs a job-creation strategy to tackle its unacceptable level of unemployment”.
With its communication and several proposals, analysis and consultation papers the Commission wants to find back the path to a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, which is the goal of the Europe 2020 strategy. The proposals are going in four directions: It addresses the Member States to strengthen their national employment policies. Elements of this proposal are to support by subsidies the creation of new jobs, also in the field of self-employment, to shift tax from labour to environmental taxes. A substantial potential for new jobs is seen in the green economy, the health sector and ICT (information communication technology). The communication then proposes a reform of the labour markets to become more dynamic and inclusive. It promotes more flexibility in labour organisation, decent and sustainable wages and also the introduction of minimum wages in all EU Member States.
The Commission highlights that still 4 million jobs are vacant across the EU, which proves again the skills mismatches in Europe. Thirdly the employment package aims to create a genuine EU labour market by improving the free movement of workers and by improving the European job seeker portal EURES. Finally the communication propose to reinforce coordination and monitoring of employment policies within the EU economic governance.
The ideas and demands of the Commission will be discussed at a high level employment conference in September to decide the right ways to implement the measures announced. The employment package includes the communication “Towards a job-rich recovery” and nine Commission Staff Working Documents, of which two are consultation papers.
Interview
Material
Web: Communication: Towards a job-rich recovery
PDF: Towards a job-rich recovery (EN) (FR) (DE)
Web: All documents including the Commission Staff Working Documents
Web: Monitoring the social impact of the crisis
Web: DG EMPL on the Employment Strategy
Background
The package will be discussed at a high level employment conference 6-7 September to further mobilise all partners to implement the measures announced. Today’s Employment Package includes a Commission policy communication “Towards a job-rich recovery” and nine Commission Staff Working Documents, of which two are consultation papers:
- Labour market trends and challenges (analytical paper)
- A quality framework for traineeships (consultation paper)
- Implementing the Youth Opportunities Initiative: first steps taken (progress report)
- Exploiting the employment potential of green growth
- Exploiting the employment potential of ICTs
- An action plan for the EU health workforce
- The household services workforce (consultation paper)
- Open, dynamic and inclusive labour markets (evaluation of the flexicurity concept )
- Reforming the European Employment Services to meet the goals of Europe 2020 (details of the EURES reform)
epnn with material from the European Commission
—
epnn is the European Protestant News Network. It covers the news stories of the Protestant Churches in Europe. epnn_brussels provides regular updates from the European Institutions, covering stories of interest for the Churches in Europe. epnn_brussels: Frank Dieter Fischbach, Commission for Church and Society, Conference of European Churches CEC / Community of Protestant Churches in Europe CPCE.
epnn and epnn_brussels releases (marked with the respective tag) run under the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). Source: European Protestant News Network EPNN, www.protestantnews.eu
