Employment growth has been impressive in the last year according to the Joint Employment Report, to be adopted by Employment Ministers on February 29. Almost 6.5 mln new jobs were created during the last two years and another 5 mln jobs are forecast by 2009.
Unemployment in the EU is expected to fall to under 7% in 2008, the lowest level since the mid-1980s. The report – which assesses member states’ implementation of their national reform programmes in the area of employment – is strongly upbeat.
However, it also points to a number of ongoing areas for concern, notably youth unemployment and under-investment in education and training.
“Recent labour market reforms are beginning to show an impact,” said VladimÃr Špidla, EU Employment Commissioner.
“Structural unemployment has fallen by one third since 2004 and the EU employment rate, currently at 66%, has moved much closer to our overall target of 70%. All member states have implemented substantive reforms since 2005, but some have responded more robustly than others. We need to redouble our efforts to effectively respond to the challenges of globalisation and ageing, in particular by investing more, and in a more targeted way, in lifelong learning.”
Employment rates for older workers: 43.5% (target is 50%) and for women: 57.2% (target is 60%) are continuing to rise strongly across the EU as a whole. But despite the positive performance in 2006, Europe remains short of the 2010 employment targets. The current employment rate implies that another 20 mln jobs will have to be created by 2010 if the target is to be reached.
Unemployment dropped significantly from 8.9% in 2005 to 8.2% in 2006 and almost all member states contributed to this trend. Both women and men benefited as the unemployment rate fell to respectively 9% and 7.6%.
Some regions and groups have however benefited less. The low skilled, disabled and migrants are still facing problems. Youth unemployment remains a severe problem in many member states at 17.4% on average.
About half of EU member states have now developed or are developing comprehensive approaches to balance more flexibility in the labour market with employment security.
Reforms of social security systems have tended to be limited to pension reforms.
Active labour market policies, although becoming more personalised, have been subject to a decline in expenditures since 2000 both as a share of GDP and per worker.
Finally, participation in lifelong learning in the EU barely increased between 2005 and 2006, while it decreased in half of the member states, and adult training provision remains uneven.
A substantial rise in the investment in human capital, better targeted towards labour market needs, is essential to close the productivity gap with our key global competitors, said the report. Learning needs to start at a very early age and continue throughout life, and qualifications learnt on the job need to be recognised across
