Brussels, 12/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - On the initiative of Anna Diamatopoulou, the European Commission must adopt its report on the performances of Member States in employment during 2001. The report also analyses the progress achieved in the fifth year of the European Employment Strategy. The analysis is based on national action plans for employment, which were submitted by Member States in the spring. The report will be sent to the Spring summit in March 2003 in Brussels. The Commission will be making a formal proposal in April 2003 with regard to the guidelines. It will also do the same on the Member States' recommendations. The main conclusions of the report are:
1) 2001 saw strong employment growth despite a less economically friendly climate: two million new jobs were created. The employment rate increased from 63.3% of the working-age population in 2000 to 63.9%. The overall unemployment rate came down from 8.2% in 2000 to 7.4% in 2001, while the long-term unemployment rate decreased from 3.7% in 2000 to 3.3%. The female employment rate grew from 54% in 2000 to 54.9% in 2001;
2) Continued overall strengthening of employment policies. Over the last few years, most Member States have reformed their labour market institutions (in particular their employment services) in order to throttle long-term unemployment and to get the unemployed back into a job or into training fast. Their employment policies also more balanced, with increased focus on job creation through a better climate for business start-ups, as well as for equal opportunities;
3) Structural weaknesses still characterise the EU labour markets. The level of unemployment long term in particular - is too high. Many Member States have still unacceptable regional differences in labour market performance. A further 15 million people must find a job by 2010 if the full employment objective agreed at Lisbon (an employment rate of 70% of the working age population by 2010) is to be reached. The productivity gap between the EU and the USA remains large. The employment rate of older workers remains, at only 38.5%, far below the target of 50% for 2010. The economic slowdown should therefore not be used as an excuse for dumping these reforms;
4) National policies also contain weaknesses: the quality in work is only dealt with in a partial way; active ageing strategies are largely lacking; the results of activation policies for the unemployed need to be better demonstrated, particularly for disadvantaged groups in the labour market and gender gaps particularly regarding pay need rectifying. Governments are also too reluctant to clearly and ambitiously commit themselves to ambitious and measurable national targets;
5) The Commission, like the European Parliament, is also concerned that not enough has been done to involve other stakeholders in the development and implementation of national policies. The Commission would like closer involvement of national Parliaments in the annual preparation and follow-up of the National Action for Employment.
Overall, labour markets are not changing very fast: Germany (with its 4 million unemployed, Italy is progressing slowly (all the indicators, notably for jobs for women, youth and pensioners); Spain (positive policies but still a lot of catching up to do; the report indicates that the enormous level of short-term contracts are given to workers but the question remains whether this is desired by the worker or imposed upon him); France (big problems for the employment of older workers and the youth too. As for the smaller countries, Greece is nowhere near achieving the Lisbon objectives on all counts, Belgium has the lowest level of older workers on the labour market in Europe, as well as regional disparities, such as Italy with the enormous differences between the North and South.