EU Employment Policies and Social Agenda: Key Priorities
EU Employment Policies and Social Agenda
These measures do not include harmonization of the laws and regulations of the Member States. Article 150 of the EC creates a consultative status to promote coordination between Member States’ employment policies and labor market. The tasks of the Committee shall be:
- To monitor the employment situation and employment policies of Member States of the Union.
- To establish opinions at the request of the Council of the Commission or on its own initiative, and contribute to the preparation of the Council’s actions referred to in Article 148.
To carry out its mandate, the Committee shall consult the social partners.
Each of the Member States and the Commission shall appoint two members.
Social Agenda
Impact on European companies of technological advances, globalization, and an aging population.
Data concerned many people are unemployed or inactive, and that a non-negligible number of young people leave school early, so the risk of there and keep a significant number of people at risk or social exclusion should never be overlooked.
The new Social Agenda is built around three headings:
- Opportunities to create more and better jobs and mobility.
- Access by all people to education, health care, and general social services.
- Solidarity government with people who are affected by the changes and cannot adapt fast enough.
Increased life expectancy in the EU (77 years for males and 83 for women). Adoption of appropriate measures to enable active aging policy in the workplace, quality health care, and economic policies that ensure the financial viability of social protection systems. It is to reinforce the integration of gender perspective into all EU policies; integration has to be translated into proposals for access for three years under care, and also improvements of existing legislation on reconciling work and family life. The document committed to strengthening the social dimension in international treaties and agreements it signs the EU, the implementation of the ILO strategy on decent work and promoting corporate social responsibility in cooperation with relevant stakeholders.
Employment Policy Guidelines
Three priority areas:
- Allow access, and subsequent maintenance of an increasing number of people in the labor market, combining the increased supply of labor for the modernization of systems social protection.
- Improve the adaptability of both workers and businesses.
- Improve education and skills of people through a significant investment in human capital.
Member States should promote full employment, improving quality and productivity at work, and economic, social, and territorial cohesion.
It should promote an approach based on the life cycle regarding work, with special attention to job creation for young people, measures to facilitate women’s presence in the labor market, support for active aging and discouragement of early retirement and maintaining a modern and financially sustainable social protection. Creation of labor markets that promote inclusion, enhance work attractiveness and make work financially attractive to job seekers, including disadvantaged and the unemployed.
Improving responses to labor market needs. Strengthen and improve the capacity of interference with the employment services, removing obstacles to mobility of workers within the Community, have a better understanding of what the real needs of labor markets, and implement appropriate management economic migration. Promote flexibility combined with employment security and reduce labor market segmentation.