site.btaEU Commissioner Thyssen: EC Will Continue to Invest in People

Sofia, April 18 (BTA) - The European Commission will continue to invest in people because they are our greatest asset, said Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, at a briefing at Sofia's NDK convention centre on Wednesday. She and Labour and Social Policy Minister Bisser Petkov commented on the results of an informal meeting of EU employment and social policy ministers, which took place here on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Petkov said the participants in the meeting united around the opinion that the present moment of stable economic growth should feature work on training the EU workforce according to the development of the economies and digital economy, as well as the requirements of the labour market in the future. In his words, one of the conclusions of the informal ministerial was that the funds Member States channel towards education and qualification should be treated as an investment, not as costs.

On the first day, the ministerial discussed the policies aimed at improving qualifications and creating new employment opportunities for older people. It also focused on active labour market policies regarding young people and the long-term unemployed, Petkov said. Both Thyssen and Petkov spoke of the role of European Youth Guarantee for reducing unemployment among young people. Between 2013 and 2017 the number of unemployed young people under 25 dropped from 28.4 to 13.5 per cent, Petkov pointed out. Thanks to the implementation of the Youth Guarantee, nearly 100,000 young people in Bulgarian have begun to work in the last 4 years.

According to Thyssen, Bulgaria is doing very well in this field and youth unemployment is lower than the average in Europe.