European Employment Strategy Debated in Brussels

The 14th edition of Employment Week held in Brussels on 5-6 June 2007 is being hailed as a huge success. The only event of its kind open to all European employment stakeholders, it attracted 900 participants from 27 EU member states and further a field. The annual conference and exhibition provides a platform for employment practitioners and decision-makers to meet and discuss the latest policies and trends in the European labour market.

During the conference, leading experts in the EU employment field, including European Commission officials, NGOs, trade unions and employers discussed topical labour market and social affairs issues. The employers' perspective was presented by top corporate organisations such as McDonald's Europe, Volvo, Toyota, Nestl, Dow Chemicals, Manpower and Air-France-KLM.

Flexicurity was high on the conference agenda with Employment Commissioner Vladimr äpidla, declaring: The Commission has promoted the debate on flexicurity with its initiative to encourage workers' mobility. Of course, there are no simple and single answers to all the questions that arise but the objective is to put human capital at the centre of our efforts. This is exactly what the debate on flexicurity is all about.

Fernando Medina, Portugal's Secretary of State for Employment and Vocational Training also spoke about flexicurity and acknowledged the complexities of rolling it out to all member states with a single approach. Emmanuel Jahan from Air-France - KLM Group stressed that flexicurity goes well beyond the usual boundaries of established social policies, making it necessary to set up networks at national and transnational levels, bringing together regions, member states, social partners and enterprises. All agreed that a one size fits all approach would not be practical in the light of varying national and cultural realities in EU member states.

Work-life balance, another key topic, brought together the Swedish Deputy Director of the Ministry of Employment and experts from a United Nations Development Programme gender equality project in Poland. The panel found that even in advanced economies, women are bearing the brunt of a lack of work-life balance. The Swedish speaker revealed that despite the equality policies in force, women still face more obstacles than men in balancing work and leisure time which is encouraging the Swedish government to roll out further measures. In Poland, such policies are far from becoming reality. The corporate sector however, is taking positive steps in becoming more open to gender issues and is developing a greater understanding of their links to business interests.

Dr Elizabeth Mestheneous, Vice-President of AGE, chaired a special session on active ageing. The debate focused on whether active ageing is the only response to demographic change and if it can work for both companies and employees. Speakers called for more legislation and acknowledged that further steps need to be taken. Legislation aimed at delaying retirement is seen as having little impact, as employees push for an early exit from the labour market while companies continue to lay off older staff.

Mobility, migration and immigration were other main topics addressed at the event. In his keynote speech, Fernando Medina said that Portugal, the upcoming holder of the EU presidency, will push for a 'realistic' approach to legal migration, one that takes care of social inclusion and improves border controls to help solve Europe's looming job shortage crisis. On the same subject, Vladimr äpidla revealed that new initiatives will be launched in the autumn to tackle black-market employment. The European Employment Commissioner declared that immigrants are those who suffer the most from black-market jobs that are often close to 'slavery'.

Stphanie Pothier, Employment Week Event Manager, said: The high quality of the conference and the excellent networking opportunities offered by the event, provided fertile ground for participants to gain a clear insight into today's most talked about employment topics. The exhibition, with over 60 organisations, created the perfect environment for exchanging experience and best practice examples mainly within an ESF programme context. The event gathered the key experts in their field all under one roof, providing an exceptional forum for learning and sharing. We look forward to returning to Brussels next year.