Interview: EU needs stimulus policies to boost job market: offical 2014-01-22 03:24:03
BRUSSELS, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The stressed European labor market needs to be improved this year through new stimulus policies in the European Union and its member states, an EU official said.
The EU slower recovery has weighed the jobless market down to a historic high level and the recovery of job market is uneven and modest, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Laszlo Andor said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
According to the latest EU official statistics, seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate of the euro area stood at 12.1 percent in November, unchanged at a record high since April, while in the wider 28-member EU, the overall unemployment rate in November was 10.9 percent, also stable since May.
"Some countries, mainly in the north, have been creating jobs. In Germany, in other countries in the north (of Europe), unemployment has been already declining in the recent period," Andor said.
"However, the certain periphery is still suffering from the long recession, and in a few countries like Greece, for example, unemployment continued to increase in the last year," he said.
"We have to reverse this trends, but we cannot reverse this without doing something against these imbalances...," he noted, urging member states to do more for job creation and find solutions at the EU level to stimulate economic growth.
He also described the current EU high youth jobless rate, more than twice the average unemployment rate, as a serious problem, saying the European bloc has outlined a scheme called "Youth Guarantee" to combat such issue.
"Young persons, those under 25 should not be allowed to be jobless for longer than 4 months after leaving school, or after loosing their jobs," he said.
Under the scheme, the public employment services must be able to provide either a new job, a further learning opportunity or an internship for months, and the EU financial support should be used for this.
The EU has created a new financial instrument with more than 6 billion euros (8 billion U.S.dollars) on the top of the European social fund in order to help those regions with the gloomiest labor markets.
Speaking of further policy to boost the job market, he pointed out the EU has identified three sectors, where job creation will be dynamic despite the long recession.
The bloc will come forward later in the spring with a new document to highlight the job creation potential of the green economy, he said. Meanwhile, the EU will expect the health and care sector in line with the ICT sector to support job growth.
"The ICT sector raises a great potential in inform-communication technology not just in a specific sector, but also new technology and new direction where all professions will have to improve the skills content for ICT."
To balance the labor market, the EU would reinforce the efforts to invest human capital in prior to further developing those sectors, he said.
The official illustrated the advantages of free movement of workers in the bloc, noting the free movement of people has been one of the cornerstones of the European integration and Single Market.
Mobile workers complement host country workers by helping to address skill gaps and labor shortages in certain sectors, he said. Enditem
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