Time to get Europe back to work

By Jerome Glass

Date: 17/03/05

When the leaders of the EU's then 15 states convened in Lisbon in March 2000 and pledged to work towards creating 'more and better jobs' it seemed like a straightforward goal.

After all, unemployment was falling, gross domestic product (GDP) growth was strong, and the economic outlook for Europe was rosy. So confident were EU leaders in the strength of Europe's economic performance that they went so far as to set up specific employment targets to bolster the European Employment Strategy. By 2010, the EU would have an overall employment rate of 70% and a female employment rate of over 60%.

The following year in Stockholm, they added yet more targets. By 2005, they pledged to have raised the overall employment rate to 67% and the female employment rate to 57%. On top of this, a whole new category was added, with an employment target of 50% for those aged 55-64. The Lisbon Agenda now had five targets in three categories to act as a spur for reform and against which its performance could be judged. But the problem with targets is that if they are not met, the failure is all very visible.

So how has Europe's flagship economic plan performed on its own very visible report-card? The short answer is: not very well. The 2004 High-Level Group's report on the progress of the Lisbon Agenda, chaired by former Dutch prime minister Wim Kok, tried to put a brave face on it and warned against painting 'a picture of unrelieved gloom' citing 'significant progress in employment between the mid-1990s and 2003'. But even this statement needs to be nuanced, as the most cursory of glances at the figures demonstrates.

While it is true that in 1998-2003 the overall employment rate rose by 2.9% to its present level of 64.3%, it is also true that much of that increase occurred before 2001. Since 2002, the increase in the rate has slowed dramatically. In 2002-2003, there was hardly an increase at all.

Worse still, once the new member states are factored in, the EU is even further behind schedule. Since announcing its major initiative to provide 'more and better jobs' the EU has actually performed less well than before the Lisbon process began. In the understated words of the Kok report: "The risk is apparent that the 2010 target of 70% employment rate will not be reached."

Article compares the targets set by the European Employment Strategy at Lisbon in 2000 - an overall employment rate in the EU of 70% and a female employment rate of over 60% by 2010 - to employment figures five years later.

European Commission: Growth and Jobs: More and better jobs http://europa.eu.int/growthandjobs/areas/fiche08_en.htm

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