Brussels, 15/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 15 December, the European Commission explained that social and employment measures are needed to ensure jobs are created in Europe through economic recovery while urging EU governments to boost budget discipline.
The first Commission annual report on developments in jobs and the social situation in Europe demonstrates how the economic crisis has further sapped weak areas of the European situation, worsening pay inequality and the loss of middle class jobs in manufacturing and building. Poverty is extremely high in Europe, explains the document, affecting 115 million inhabitants of Europe (23% of the population) in 2010. Inequality has deepened in a number of traditionally egalitarian member states, in Scandinavia, for example. The report says that better distribution of welfare spending and fairer taxation of high earners and capital gains can be used to reduce inequality. The elderly, single parents and households where few people (if any) have a job are particularly exposed to poverty and social exclusion, says the report. More than 8% of employed people are at risk of poverty (the working poor). (LC/transl.fl)