12m new jobs for women still needed to meet Lisbon criteria

Date: 24/01/02

By Martin Banks

TWENTY million jobs must be created in the next nine years if the European Union is to hit its employment targets, a report published today (24 January) reveals.

Of these, 11 to 12 million jobs must be for women and five million for older people, says

Employment Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou, whose report sets out how member states can galvanize efforts to create jobs across the continent by the year 2010.

But it puts the onus firmly on national governments in hitting the targets set at the Lisbon and Stockholm summits.

Commission President Romano Prodi said: 'Member states must do more to unlock the potential of EU labour markets if we are to hit our agreed goal of full employment by 2010.'

The report identifies four measures it says are necessary in meeting the ambitious jobs target:

• More public funds for training workers;
• A focused review of tax and benefit systems;
• More work on tackling gender pay gaps and
• Looking again at how to reduce school drop-out rates.

European Union leaders meeting at Lisbon in March 2000 said they wanted 70 of Europe's working population to be employed by the year 2010. The figure was 60 for women and 50 for people aged 55-64. Latest Commisssion statistics, however, show that EU-wide employment stands at 64.5. Of this, 55.4 of women work while just 38.8 of older people are employed.

The labour market participation report will go to the Barcelona summit in March where it will have added significance as Spain has identified increasing employment as one of the main priorities of its six-month EU presidency.

Diamantopoulou said: 'Economic cool-off must not mean policy cool-off. If we are to hit the agreed employment targets by 2010, we must persevere with - and intensify - our labour market reforms.

'Jobs are not created in Brussels and member states have to take this task seriously,' she added.

Twenty million jobs must be created in the next nine years if the European Union is to hit its employment targets, a report published on 24 January 2002 reveals. Of these, 11 to 12 million jobs must be for women and five million for older people.