According to reports released on 22 and 25 February 2008, employment has risen throughout the EU - the sole exception being Denmark, where a saturation of the labour market seems to have been reached. 3.5 million new jobs were created over the last year, 850,000 of which during the last quarter alone. The creation of five million more jobs is being forecast for this year.
The main findings of the reports are:
- Employment growth rests first and foremost on the services sector, where 18 million new jobs have been created since the year 2000. After a slight decrease in the meantime, employment in industry has returned to more or less the level of eight years ago, while agriculture experiences a steady decrease.
- Unemployment has dropped sharply in the new member states, as well as in Germany and France. The most notable decrease took place in Poland, where the unemployment rate reached 8.4%, down 3.8 percentage points over the last year.
- On the downside, youth unemployment remains at levels of around 20% in some new member states (Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia), as well as in several old ones (Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and Sweden).
- With employment rates of 43.5% for older workers and 57.2% for women, the EU is, in spite of steady growth, unlikely to meet the 2010 Lisbon targets.
- Low-skilled workers, the disabled and migrants remain the most vulnerable groups in the labour market, stressing the importance of social inclusion and lifelong learning in reaching employment targets.
- A growing number of sectors, form healthcare to arts and crafts, is feeling increasing skills shortage.
- Germany, the EU's biggest economy, is about to reach the Lisbon employment target of a 70% employment rate in 2010 - in the summer of 2007, the country was only 0.1% away from this figure. With a 1.6 percentage point decrease in unemployment, German employment has become one of the motors of EU growth again.
- Nevertheless, a report on social inclusion also finds that 16% of EU citizens remain at risk of poverty, while some 8% are at risk despite being employed.
