Unemployment in the EU is continuing to fall, with the rate approaching its 2008 low point. This is good news: the Europe 2020 target of 75% employment in the working age population is now in sight for many Member States. However, as unemployment reaches new lows, the opposite problem is emerging – labour shortages
Feelings of insecurity in several dimensions of life are widespread in the EU, even among those who are materially well-off. Only 1% of the EU population enjoys the highest level of security in the combined areas of personal security and security in housing, healthcare, employment and old-age income.
As the European Union recoups the losses of the crisis and seeks a sounder footing for future growth, the concept of convergence has taken centre stage in the policy discourse. But what do we mean by ‘convergence’ in the European context?
Increases to minimum wages have gathered pace since 2010, with the highest increases recorded in countries which had the lowest minimum wages. However a large gap remains, with minimum wage workers in Bulgaria, the country with the lowest statutory minimum wage, earning just one-eighth the salary of minimum wages workers in Luxembourg, which has the highest rate.
People surveyed about their optimism for the future in Eurofound’s European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) were more optimistic about their own future in 2016 than they had been about the future in general in 2011. This growth in optimism can partly be attributed to the improved economic situation in Europe since 2011.
The pilot project on the Future of Manufacturing in Europe was launched in 2015 to explore the prospects for a globally competitive future in manufacturing and the associated implications for employment in terms of the number of jobs, workforce composition, skill needs and geographical dispersion throughout Europe.
Manufacturing is on the up in Europe. The latest data shows that, for the first time since 2005, the number of new manufacturing jobs announced in national media outstripped the number of announced job losses. In this blog piece Andrea Broughton and John Hurley take a closer look at the resurgence of the sector.
