'Commissie hecht groot belang aan tegengaan werkloosheid, sociale uitsluiting en lage inkomens'

The Meeting of the Chairpersons of the Committees on Social Affairs and Labour “Employment Incentives to Implement the Europe 2020 Strategy” discussed youth employment and initiatives to increase employment and share good practice in implementing youth employment measures.

The European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, László Andor i, made an overview of the trends in the policies aimed at employment and increase of youth employment by 2020. He noted that the European Commission put a lot of emphasis on combating high unemployment, social exclusion and low income. In his opinion, Member States can make use of country specific recommendations in addressing unemployment problems; they are urged to modernise and improve their legislation, ensure more effective employment, put in place training curricula that match market demands. He also described the Youth Guarantees initiative as the one which provides opportunities for young people under the age of 25 to receive a quality offer of a job, further education, apprenticeship or traineeship. Mr Andor also noted the involvement of social partners.

The European Commissioner said that Lithuania had taken youth unemployment very seriously including at a political level. While youth unemployment reached 32 per cent in Lithuania in 2011, it managed to bring it down to the EU average at 22.4 per cent in the 2nd quarter of this year. Lithuania had set herself a more ambitious aim to reduce youth unemployment to 16 per cent by 2020. “Let me congratulate you,” Commissioner Andor said and continued by saying that Lithuania had already allocated 26 million euros from the European Social Fund to target young unemployed people, to address the challenge of youth unemployment and training of young people who have no necessary skills. “Lithuania is on the right path and I encourage you not to step down your efforts, on the contrary, to step up.”

In the framework of the parliamentary dimension event of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council, Brigitte Van Der Burg, Chair of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment of the Dutch House of Representatives, and Tarja Filatov, Chair of the Employment and Equality Committee of the Eduskunta of the Republic of Finland, shared the good practice in implementing youth employment measures and prospects for implementing the Youth Guarantees initiative in their respective countries.

Brigitte Van Der Burg particularly stressed the significance of traineeships and apprenticeships and told about the specificities of the Dutch initiatives to that end. She believes the focus should be on continuous improvement of the social security system.

Tarja Filatov, Chair of the Employment and Equality Committee of the Eduskunta, described the Finnish experience in cutting down on youth unemployment by noting the sense of long-term and sustainable decisions. She is convinced that the measures put in place should be effective and of high quality for employers to have motivation to offer real jobs to young people after subsidies have ended.

Communication from the Commission “Europe 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” was approved by the Council of the European Union more than three years ago. The EU headline target there is to achieve that at least 75% of the population aged 20-64 be employed.