European Employment Strategy has paid off: report

09 October 2008
by eub2 -- last modified 09 October 2008

The European Employment Strategy has paid off, in terms of creating both more and better jobs, according to the new European Restructuring Monitor’s annual report 2008 from the European Foundation of the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), the Dublin-based EU agency. The report, which examines patterns of employment expansion in Europe between 1995-2006, concludes that women workers in particular have benefited from this period of stronger European employment growth.

Most Member States of the European Union have generated both more and better jobs in the decade after 1995, especially in the EU15 area. The proportion of working age population in active employment has risen from 60% to 66% in the EU15, with total employment growing by more than 22 million jobs. But what about the quality of all these jobs created from 1995 to 2006: were they mostly good or bad jobs? The aim of this ERM 2008 Report, entitled More and better jobs: patterns of employment expansion in Europe, is to provide an evaluation of the quality of the jobs created for the different European countries, and to provide comment and analysis at various levels, eg. country, sector, by gender, and employment status.

'The overall picture is very positive, good news indeed for the achievement of the overall objectives of the Lisbon Agenda. More and better jobs, and more opportunities for women, are created in Europe, representing a shift towards the knowledge economy,' says Jorma Karppinen, Eurofound's Director. 'But the same progress has led to increasing difficulties for low-skilled workers or workers displaced in declining industries. Policymakers have to be wary about stagnating employment growth in low-paid jobs. This can mean fewer employment opportunities for low-skilled workers at a time when the decline of new medium-quality jobs creates an obstacle to upward mobility in the employment structure.'

The best performers in terms of job quantity and quality were Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg and Sweden, according to the report. Most of the jobs were located in knowledge-intensive services, especially in the business services sector and the health and education sectors. In comparison, the report points out that other countries like Spain, Greece and Italy also experienced a large expansion in employment, but this expansion was flatter in terms of quality and less concentrated in higher quality jobs. The Netherlands, France and Cyprus showed intense job creation at the top and at the bottom with a big gap in the middle.

The employment situation of women, especially in the former EU15 countries, has improved both quantitatively and qualitatively. The majority of net new jobs in the EU over the last decade have been taken by women and most of these jobs have been of high or medium-high quality.

The report also concludes that low-paid jobs have become more atypical in the EU since 1995. In many countries, most employment created in low-paid jobs was part-time or fixed-term, whereas full-time permanent jobs in the low-paid segment were either destroyed or remained stagnant. Migrant workers from outside the EU tended to occupy the lowest-paid jobs. In Spain, Cyprus, Ireland and Greece, for example, the report points to the finding that most of the net jobs created in the two bottom job quality quintiles in these countries were taken up by non-EU nationals.

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) is a tripartite EU body, whose role is to provide key actors in social policymaking with findings, knowledge and advice drawn from comparative research. Eurofound was established by Council Regulation EEC No 1365/75 of 26 May 1975 and is located in Dublin, Ireland.

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound)