Articles related to "Labour market reforms"

While the EU as a whole continues to face record levels of unemployment, some member states are seeing growing levels of demand for labour, and recent reports reveal significant increases in the numbers of agency workers and part-time jobs.

Working shorter hours could reduce the burden our lifestyles impose on the environment while offering solutions to the mass unemployment caused by the economic crisis, according to new research.

Some 40% of young job seekers in Bulgaria were successfully employed thanks to help provided by family members and friends, new research has disclosed. Dnevnik, EurActiv's partner in Sofia, reports.

EU unemployment levels will continue to rise and are expected to breach the 10% mark in 2010, while young people are the worst affected by mass joblessness, a report by the European Commission has found.

Meeting in Luxembourg on 9 June, European labour ministers called on the Commission and national governments to accelerate measures to increase the proportion of people aged 24 and under who hold a regular job. 

Climate change topped the agenda of the Tripartite Social Summit yesterday (13 March), with social partners insisting that incentives must be offered to prevent potentially polluting industries from relocating and withdrawing jobs from the EU.

Employers' and trade unions are set to agree a compromise over the modernisation of the labour market in France, paving the way towards a distinctive 'French approach' to the Danish 'flexicurity' model. EurActiv France reports.  

Employment ministers gathering in Brussels on 5 and 6 December are set to adopt dossiers on flexicurity, company pensions and temporary agency work.  Some projects, however, will only be presented as watered-down versions.

As railroad workers fight for higher income and the preservation of special pension schemes, strikes paralysing French and German railway systems may have severe effects on the two countries' economies, employers' federations warn. 

European social partners have agreed upon the key principles to guide "flexicurity" labour market reforms in member states at a key meeting with EU leaders in Lisbon, bringing an end to months of bickering.

An own-initiative report on flexicurity and labour law adopted by the European Parliament is mildly critical of the Commission's Communication on the matter, asking for indefinite employment contracts to be the norm.

The Commission is set to adopt on 27 June a long-awaited paper on 'flexicurity', the approach that aims to reconcile flexible labour-market rules with high social protection, in an attempt to guide European states in dealing with the growing pressures of globalisation and demographic change.

Transposing the Nordic model of flexicurity to other EU states will not work if national labour markets and social traditions are not accounted for, according to the Commission, which said it will recommend different pathways to reform later this month.

Amid Commission predictions that some 5.5 million new jobs will be created in 2007-08, EU leaders are facing a different challenge: finding workers to fill the vacancies.

The European Trade Union Confederation - ETUC - has strongly criticised the Parliament's draft report on the Commission's Green Paper 'Modernising labour law to meet the challenges of the 21^st century', declaring that it requires 'fundamental change'. In a position paper published on May 7, it states that Parliament offers a 'flawed' and 'over-simplified' analysis of the EU's labour-market problems.

Experts in Brussels discussed the mechanics that may lead to a larger, more productive and more profitable workforce in Europe. 

The final version of the Commission's Green Paper on labour law, to be presented by Commissioner Spidla on 22 November 2006, has a new title and most of its original questions up for consultation have been changed.

At an informal tripartite social summit in Lahti, trade unionists and business associations rallied up behind the Nordic "flexicurity" approach to get economies going. Disagreement pertains, however, as to what the f-word means.

In reaction to a critical letter from the European business lobby, the Commission has delayed the publication of a Green Paper on European Labour law until at least November 2006.

According to a new survey conducted by Financial Times and Harris Poll, EU workers are in favour of more flexible working and retirement arrangements, but also expect to be paid accordingly.

Denmark, the champion of the EU's Lisbon Agenda on Jobs and Growth, will increase the retirement age by two years in order to bring more people into jobs and finance social security systems.

Where should the priorities in EU labour policy be? Can the Danish flexicurity success be exported? How to reconcile flexibility and social security? Those questions and more were debated by a panel at Employment Week.

For 13 years, the European Union has been fighting to create the jobs it takes to counter demographic change and worldwide competition. However, millions of jobs created are still not sufficient.

Now that the French controversial labour law has been withdrawn and will soon be replaced by a series of less radical measures, commentators question France’s capacity to undertake the socio-economic reforms that are necessary to achieve the EU’s Lisbon agenda.

French labour unions hope to mobilise more strikers than last week to force the withdrawal of the youth employment contract, which is part of the Lisbon agenda for growth and jobs.

Three of the EU's leading economies will be hit by strikes on 28 March. Both in France and the UK the disruptions underline the difficulty in pushing through labour market reforms.   

One week before the EU spring summit takes stock of the progress of the Lisbon strategy leaders from the world of politics and business meet to debate how to build European excellence.

The 2006 'Going for Growth' report of the OECD indicates that EU countries need to do more to increase the number of people in the workforce. Government actions in that area, however, are being contested in the streets in France and Germany.

The informal Hampton Court summit indicates tough challenges ahead on the EU budget for Tony Blair 

Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy earned cheers and boos from MEPs when he defended his stance in the 'Swedish social model row'.

Member states that have invested in active labour market policies have increased employment rates despite Europe's slow growth, says the Commission's Employment Report for 2005.

The employment rate in almost all EU countries has grown since the Lisbon summit in 2000, but growth will have to accelerate a lot if the targets set at the summit for 2010 are to be met. 

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin presented on 1 September his second action plan on economic reform, promising to modernise France's economy and win the battle against unemployment.

Nearly one in five Europeans work part-time only. The number of part-time contracts has increased, especially among men and female employment has gone up from 55.1 to 56.1%.

When Mr Blair addresses the European Parliament, he will have support for his economic thinking on the EU's future from a study showing that labour market reforms in the UK lead to better results than the European "social model".

In this paper from the Robert Schuman Foundation, Philippe Garabiol outlines the advantages and disadvantages of the existing fexicurity models in Europe in order to define common principles for a European labour market.