Brussels, 17/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - In the coming days, the European Commission will publish, as previously indicated, its report "Employment in EUROPE 2001". The report shows that the functioning of the labour markets in the EU is improving in a general manner and very rapidly. It also presents an analysis of the main trends and employment prospects in the EU and in the candidate countries in the context of the targets for employment, which have been defined at the Lisbon and Stockholm Summits. The report underlined that the prize in terms of job creation goes to highly qualified women working in the field of high technologies.
It significantly merges from this report that in 2000: 1) more than 3 million new jobs have been created, and the employment rate rose from 62.23% to 63.3% compared to 1999. For the third consecutive year, job creation has been more numerous in the category of full-time jobs (close to 70% of the net job creation, against 60% in 1999 and 54% in 1998) than in part-time jobs; 2) out of the 3 million jobs created, 1.6 million have been attributed to women. The rate of employment for women went from 52.8% in 1999 to 54% in 2000. Between 1995 and 2000, the gap between the rate of employment for men and women tightened 2 percentage points; 3) job creation was strongest in the high technology sectors and in those of high knowledge intensity (more than 60% of the total job creation between 1995 and 2000); 4) unemployment fell by more than 1.5 million persons, falling to an average of 8.2%; 5) 80% of Europeans are highly satisfied with their job and their working conditions, against 20% who are not pleased with their present job; 6) close to a quarter of the European workforce is concentrated in low quality employment in which security and training are lacking.
Moreover, a study entitled "the difference in terms of employment between Europe and the United States, wage inequalities, mobility in terms of remuneration and competence", requested by the Commission, shows that the role of women in the labour market explains in part the gap that exists in terms of employment between the United States and the EU: 1) women are in a clear minority in the sector of well paid jobs, particularly in Europe; 2) in Europe, women work part-time during the years dedicate to young children (while in the United States, they do so, more so when they approach the age of retirement); 3) the number of women, in particular those that work part-time, is extremely high in the sector of low wage jobs; 4) part-time work involves a significant penalisation in terms of wages, which lasts after the return to full-time employment. This study, whose results are based in extensive research on the data (PCM) carried out for France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as for the United States, does not systematically support the thesis according to which the rigidity of the labour markets in the European economic blocks employment growth. It may be found on the website: http: //esnet.cec.com/dgs/employment_social/pub_en.htm.