Predicting major economic contraction and high unemployment, social partners said yesterday (12 March) that they are looking at the job summit to find "other ways of coordinated activities which will make a difference on the job front".
In its latest economic forecast released yesterday, BusinessEurope, the European employers organisation, said the 16-nation euro zone's economy would contract by 2.1 percent in 2009, compared with 0.8 percent growth last year. For the 27-nation EU, negative growth is expected at 2.2 percent.
"There is in particular the concern that the recession will deepen financial sector losses, leading to a downward spiral of falling asset prices, new credit restrictions and a wave of corporate bankruptcies," BusinessEurope said.
The loss of 4.5 million jobs would see the EU's unemployment rate soar to 9% in 2009, up from 7% the previous year, according to BusinessEurope's survey. The organisation expects almost two million job losses in Spain and the UK alone this year.
"Unemployment is going to get a lot worse. It's going to be a very, very dire year," said John Monks, secretary-general of the European Trade Union Confederation.
The figures released by BusinessEurope are far worse than January's European Commission forecast for the EU to contract by 1.8% and the euro zone by 1.9%, an outlook based on EU member-state figures.
Earlier in the week, the European Parliament adopted a string of reports on improving the economy and called on the spring summit of EU leaders meeting next week to launch a European employment initiative.
The Socialist group called for investment to be stepped up, by an extra one percent of GDP this year and another 1.5% next year to help the recovery. Without extra investment, the Socialists warned, unemployment across the EU will hit 25 million by the end of 2009.
Socialist group leader Martin Schulz said the Commission's economic recovery plan needed to include greater investment, an assault on tax havens and solidarity with those who are hardest hit.
Schulz was backed by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the Party of European Socialists, who told Commission President José Manuel Barroso during the debate in Strasbourg: "You have not done enough. People expect more from Europe than you are saying today." He added: "I appeal to you to make a new, comprehensive recovery package."
MEPs called on the Commission to take exceptional measures, including widening access to the European Globalisation Fund to support workers in a wider variety of situations, and a temporary opening of the European Social Fund to support employment. Those two instruments should be used immediately to finance measures in the field of lifelong learning, said MEPs.
Releasing the forecast, BusinessEurope criticised the EU executive for failing to ensure that member states make progress on meeting the Lisbon 'Growth and Jobs' targets, while restructuring their economies and labour markets (EurActiv 30/01/09).
