Europe needs a job-creation strategy to tackle its unacceptable level of unemployment. The EU has a large untapped potential to boost job creation. All together, the green economy, the health and new technology sectors will create more than 20 millions of jobs in the years to come. Member States need to seize these opportunities,mobilise existing resources and stimulate their labour market in close cooperation with the social partners. Together we can make it happen."
Josè Manuel Barroso – President of the European Commission
The Employment package
With EU unemployment hitting record levels and forecasts of a grim economic outlook for the months ahead, the Commission has come forward today with a set of concrete measures to boost jobs.
The proposal focuses on the demand-side of job creation, setting out ways for Member States to encourage hiring by reducing taxes on labour or supporting business start-ups more. It also identifies the areas with the biggest job potential for the future: the green economy, health services and ICT. The policy communication underlines the need for a stronger employment and social dimension to EU governance and lays down ways to involve employers' and workers' representatives more in setting EU priorities.
Europe 2020
Growth and job creation depend on healthy, well connected markets, where competition and consumer access stimulate business and innovation.
Several obstacles have still to be addressed:
- bottlenecks to cross-border activity
- insufficiently interconnected networks
- uneven enforcement of single market rules
- legal complexity from having up to 27 different sets of rules for some transactions
Work is also needed to improve access to the single market for small businessesand to develop entrepreneurship, e.g. by
- simplifying company law (bankruptcy procedures, private company statute, etc.)
- allowing entrepreneurs to restart after failed businesses.
Individual consumers should be able to buy goods and services from other EU countries with greater ease and confidence, in particular on-line.
Investing in growth
The financial crisis has had a major impact on the capacity of European businesses and governments to finance investment and innovation projects. To achieve its objectives for Europe 2020, the EU needs:
- a regulatory environment that ensures effective, secure financial markets
- innovative instruments to finance the necessary investment - including public-private partnerships.
These long-term growth priorities have been taken up in the Commission's proposals for the next multi-annual financial framework (2014-2020) of the EU.
At present, the European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund andCohesion Fund together account for more than one third of the EU's overall budget.
These tools help to ensure that money is invested effectively in order to support smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
EU funding is helping to support:
- More and better jobs
- The development of new technologies
- Cutting edge research
- High-speed internet access
- Smart transport and energy infrastructure
- Energy efficiency and renewable energies
- Skills and training