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BackThis week, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) presented its World of Work Report in which it urges the EU to initiate a shift in policy towards job creation in the EU in order to tackle the dramatic jobs crisis with more than 26 million people out of work. According to the ILO, sweeping austerity measures and structural reforms are wrong and miss the root causes of the crisis. The Europe 2020 Strategy and the only recently published Social Investment Package would provide sufficient options to adopt job-oriented policies and not only let oneself be guided by budget and competition policy objectives.
ILO: employment situation is deteriorating further
According to the ILO, the employment situation in the EU has been deteriorated further since the implementation of strict austerity measures. Following to a respite in 2010 and 2011, unemployment has risen again and there are still no signs of recovery. In the past six months alone, one million people in the EU have lost their job. Meanwhile, there are 10 million more people out of work in the EU than before the outbreak of the crisis. Particularly affected are young and low-qualified employees. Apart from that, long-term unemployment is becoming a structural problem in many areas. One of the ILO’s proposed solutions is to counteract the downward pressure on wages and employment because it hampers productive investments and intra-European trade. Apart from an employment guarantee for young people, the ILO demands the social dialogue between employers, employees and governments as an important instrument for developing relevant strategies. Demands, which time and again have been formulated at EU level - in this or a similar form. However, there is a frequent lack of concrete implementation.
ILO: social unrest looming
In view of the small number of new jobs created in the current situation, jobseekers have increasing problems to find employment. One of the consequences is that many unemployed people feel discouraged and have given up looking for work. A new aspect is the fact that the deterioration of the labour market situation has increased the risk of social unrest. One wonders, how long it will take to initiate a change of thinking to ensure that the importance of employment policy measures, such as a target-oriented active labour market policy and effective welfare programmes will be put into practice. The experiences made by Sweden, which adopted a similar strategy in the 1990ies to tackle the problems in the country’s financial sector, show that such employment-oriented packages of measures are not only feasible, but also promising. Finally, the ILO Report finds that many European countries have initiated labour market reforms as a result of the current crisis, which frequently also affect protection against dismissal, social protection and collective bargaining. According to the ILO, these reforms were all too often adopted without consulting trade unions and employer organisations and would therefore not be regarded as target-oriented anti-crisis measures.
Further Information:
ILO World of Work Report
According to the ILO, the employment situation in the EU has been deteriorated further since the implementation of strict austerity measures. Following to a respite in 2010 and 2011, unemployment has risen again and there are still no signs of recovery. In the past six months alone, one million people in the EU have lost their job. Meanwhile, there are 10 million more people out of work in the EU than before the outbreak of the crisis. Particularly affected are young and low-qualified employees. Apart from that, long-term unemployment is becoming a structural problem in many areas. One of the ILO’s proposed solutions is to counteract the downward pressure on wages and employment because it hampers productive investments and intra-European trade. Apart from an employment guarantee for young people, the ILO demands the social dialogue between employers, employees and governments as an important instrument for developing relevant strategies. Demands, which time and again have been formulated at EU level - in this or a similar form. However, there is a frequent lack of concrete implementation.
ILO: social unrest looming
In view of the small number of new jobs created in the current situation, jobseekers have increasing problems to find employment. One of the consequences is that many unemployed people feel discouraged and have given up looking for work. A new aspect is the fact that the deterioration of the labour market situation has increased the risk of social unrest. One wonders, how long it will take to initiate a change of thinking to ensure that the importance of employment policy measures, such as a target-oriented active labour market policy and effective welfare programmes will be put into practice. The experiences made by Sweden, which adopted a similar strategy in the 1990ies to tackle the problems in the country’s financial sector, show that such employment-oriented packages of measures are not only feasible, but also promising. Finally, the ILO Report finds that many European countries have initiated labour market reforms as a result of the current crisis, which frequently also affect protection against dismissal, social protection and collective bargaining. According to the ILO, these reforms were all too often adopted without consulting trade unions and employer organisations and would therefore not be regarded as target-oriented anti-crisis measures.
Further Information:
ILO World of Work Report