Brussels, 15/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - After four previous editions, it has almost become a habit for the European Commission to publish a report in January on “Employment and Social Developments”. This habit appears in both form and content as the most recent addition, presented on Thursday 15 January, is not exactly different from those published previously.
Given that the same problems of sluggish economic growth and high unemployment exist, who cannot but recognise that the observations made in 2015 are similar to those made in 2014, 2013 and 2012 (the data gathered, despite a few relatively encouraging signs since the end of 2013, remain very similar). The solutions proposed are also almost identical, except for the fact that this time the Commission is counting on the Junker plan to come up with a different story for next year's edition.
In her presentation of the new edition to the press, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs Skills and Labour Mobility Marianne Thyssen opted for the language of a warrior and spoke of “our mission” with regard to the Commission's priority of job creation and the “offensive” that she is carrying out with the €315 billion investment plan she is currently fine tuning.
The ingredients in this winning recipe are well-known and were already on the previous Commission's menu and can be summed up in a single slogan: carry out structural reforms. How can the worker of tomorrow be forged, when there are still 9 million Europeans who have been looking for a job since as far back as 2008, and even before? According to the report, the most important thing is to provide an incentive to work or “activation” for the jobseeker, which explains the need to carry out reforms or modernise the social welfare systems.
Given that the majority of jobs created are of poor quality (temporary or part-time, or a combination of the two) they need to be improved: it is not so much the demand that is creating a problem, but rather the supply. The report therefore proposes investing in the acquisition and update of the skills sought. On the question of the problem of convergence between member states (centre/periphery and North/South divisions), the report takes a cautious view. A structural imbalance does exist but, as Thyssen emphasises, this Commission does not intend to tackle this problem immediately - for example, by means of the notorious “automatic stabilisers”. (JK)