Brussels, 23/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 23 November 2010, the European Commission launched a new flagship initiative in Strasbourg, “A Strategy for New Skills and Jobs”, which will help the EU reach the common objective set out in the EU 2020 Strategy of increasing the proportion of 20-64-year-olds in employment to 75% by 2020 across the EU. This will be a tall order in that the current proportion of this age group in work is 69%. To achieve the 75% target by 2020, a more efficient labour market will be required, people will need more market-friendly qualifications and there will also be the need for better quality jobs and a better match of supply and demand.
The rate of employment of women needs to increase as there is a wide gap in the EU, with women's employment ranging from less than 40% in Malta to 70-75% in Scandinavia. In Finland, many women work part-time, which means that there is no comparative equivalence with full time work. To ensure decent working conditions and strengthen labour legislation, the Commission will suggest a review of the working time directive, unveil draft legislation to improve application of the seconded worker directive, examine health and safety at work legislation and will prepare a new health and safety strategy.
In education, there will be a move to raise qualifications and by 2020, 60 million high-qualification jobs should have been created in the EU, but it is expected that some 12 million low-skill jobs will be lost. Improvement in the three R's (reading, writing and arithmetic) is vital and the “Youth in Movement” initiative should be very helpful in this connection. (G. B. trans fl)