The EU Council of Ministers for employment and social affairs adopted the joint Report on employment 2007 on 22 February. The Report is aimed at evaluating the implementation of the European Strategy for employment and conformity with the Lisbon Strategy on aspects linked to work within national reform programmes. It’s the first document in response to which the ministers – on the initiative of the European Commission – agree to “take into consideration” joint recommendations concerning the individual socio-economic policies of member states. The figures are reassuring; unemployment is falling (8.8%) employment rising (+0.8%), but to achieve the Lisbon objectives a further 22 million jobs would need to be created by 2010. Another innovation discussed in the Report is so-called “flexisecurity”: policies that combine flexibility and security on the labour market now make an important contribution to productivity and quality of employment. Lastly, the Report underlines the need for Europe to curb the “black” labour market and improve ongoing training for adults.
