Keeping tabs on employment market

Date: 01/05/1997

By Michael Mann

WITH the battle against unemployment formally at the top of the EU's political agenda, the new employment and labour market committee aims to strike a balance between macroeconomic policy and pure labour market concerns.

The first attempt to coordinate the job-creation measures proposed at the December 1994 Essen summit came under the French EU presidency in the first half of 1995. But the ad hoc nature of the discussions allowed little scope for real policy development.

Aware that employment prospects were influenced by much more than pure macroeconomic policies, Union heads of government finally decided last December to give labour ministries a committee of their own with its own bureau and permanent secretariat.

Its 1997 work programme was given the once-over by social affairs ministers earlier this month.

Already, the 32-member committee has taken a detailed look at the effects of fiscal policies on labour markets, and ways of restructuring public expenditure and social protection systems to make them more employment-friendly.

In the few short months since the last summit, it has also held initial discussions on the 'interim' report on employment being prepared for the June summit in Amsterdam.

Central to the committee's duties will be a comparison of the various initiatives being taken in the different member states to put some of the EU's 18 million jobless back to work.

The committee will look at the policies of countries with relatively positive employment records, and compare how other governments' tactics deviate from these and to what extent such variations can be blamed for stifling job creation.

“In the ad hoc group, we did nothing more than look at the draft reports being prepared for heads of government. Now we are looking at other, broader issues and working on a monitoring system for the multi-annual programmes being put together by all the EU governments,” said another official.

Crucially, the committee will attempt to keep an eye on the potential impact of apparently unrelated policy decisions in other fields.

It will also be the EU's eyes and ears, monitoring the work carried out by international organisations and in countries outside the Union.

Reflecting widespread recognition that the balance of the sexes is still far from equal in the EU workforce, the committee's mandate talks of “according particular attention to the different situation between men and women on the jobs market”.

It will also examine how it can cooperate most effectively with employers and unions in a European context.

The committee is composed of two officials from each member state, plus two representatives from the Commission: Allan Larsson, head of the Directorate-General for social affairs (DGV), and Juhani Lönnroth, DGV's director of employment.

Its chairman is Hans Borstlap, director-general for economic affairs in the Dutch ministry for social affairs and employment, who is assisted by vice-chairmen from Portugal and Denmark.

It expects to meet seven or eight times per year, including an informal session, scheduled this year for the Dutch town of Apeldoorn in June or July.