The Martens Centre hosted an event on the 5th of May 2015, on Europe’s Labour Markets Reforms with special guest the EC Vice-President, Jyrki Katainen. This event coincided with the launch of the research: It’s Our Job: Reforming Europe’s Labour Markets by Eoin Drea and Siegfried Muresan MEP. They discussed how labour market reform could return growth and competitiveness to the European economy.
The creation of jobs across Europe remains a key economic and social challenge for the EU. Given the negative impact of the financial crisis on European citizens, the EU’s ability to promote effective job creation policies will be viewed as a major success of the wider integration process. In this context, a new approach is required to provide a growth-based strategy for creating employment across Europe. What is required is an achievable strategy based on the realities of modern EU labour markets.
This research, ‘’It’s Our Job: Reforming Europe’s Labour Markets’’ based on an analysis of six member states, provides a set of recommendations designed to reflect the current characteristics of the EU labour market. The research concludes that (1) EU employment policies should be simplified and better coordinated; (2) Clearly defined action s should be introduced to further improve labour mobility; (3) The focus of policymaking should be switched from combating unemployment to creating jobs; and (4) It is possible to finance the recovery by bridging the gap between investment and reform.
In his introductory remarks Vice-President Katainen mentioned that the Labour mobility package is a key objective of the Commission Working Programme 2015 and that reforms are meant to be the building posts for better and more prosperous societies. Labour market reform constitutes a high quality of work flexibility. He added that we are doing reforms in order to provide a better future for our citizens, considering also the inter alia changes in digital trade. He pointed out that we must be ready to sacrifice some political convenience for better labour market, bearing always in mind, that labour market reforms benefit workers by promoting inclusiveness and future sustainability. In that respect, he said that the duty of the Commission is to ensure that MS implement recommended reforms. The EU must put in place a trustworthy framework, but it is up to national governments to implement structural reforms.
Vice-President continued his contribution by stressing out the importance of the investment, jobs and rebalancing of the socio-economic agenda in order to give new impetus to the European project, and urged to use the EU tools to tackle unemployment such as: youth guarantee, network services, apprenticeships and digital jobs.
As a final point Vice-President Katainen pointed out that we have to focus more than ever before on the quality and flexibility of the work and committed himself to improving the quality of education in the Member States.