site.btaEU Informal Social Ministerial in Sofia

Sofia, April 17 (BTA) - Improving workforce qualifications as a means to fight long-term unemployment is the focus of a two-day informal meeting of EU employment and social policy ministers unveiled at the NDK convention centre in Sofia on Tuesday.

Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, said that economy across Europe is on the rise again, and unemployment stands at 7.1 per cent - the lowest since 2008. Unemployment of young people is also declining, although it remains relatively high at 16 per cent in the continent, with enormous national differences between 6 and 45 per cent. Over 3.5 million young people in Europe are unemployed and there are still over 8 million long-term unemployed, Thyssen said at the opening.

She went on to say that Europe is ageing, the workforce is diminishing and if the goal is a competitive economy in a digital environment, the social security system should be stable. People should update their skills, adapt to a larger transition in their lives, and change jobs, the Commissioner added. The old definition of the state of prosperity was care from the cradle to the grave, but the new one should be development from the cradle to the grave, which is actually the meaning of the first pillar of social rights - education and life-long learning.

According to the Commissioner, differences in skills are the main reason for long-term unemployment and although all Member States make reforms and provide incentives for work, 63 million Europeans still do not have basic digital skills.

Investments should be made in people not only through policies but also through a more traditional manner such as the Union's budget, she argued. Its multiannual financial framework should guarantee investments in people and the social field, Thyssen said.

Speaking at the opening of the venue, Bulgarian Labour and Social Policy Minister Bisser Petkov noted that there has been a stable economic growth in the EU in recent years, leading to a tangible improvement of the labour market. He, too, underscored the need to improve workforce skills and to deal with youth and long-term unemployment.

Luca Visentini, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) asked for more funds for youth policies. He noted that the framework of the indicators achieved under the current youth guarantee does not provide sufficient information about the quality of the measures.

Long-term unemployment cannot be considered an independent phenomenon; rather, it is a symptom of the situation on the labour market and of dysfunctional economic model, Visentini said. In his opinion, this calls for a reform of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund and its transformation into a fund financing the transition from one skill to another, or from one job to another.

Heinz Koller, Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Labour Organization, pointed out that public costs for training workers have declined in recent years. Renate Hornung-Draus, Vice-Chair of BusinessEurope's Social Affairs Committee, Valeria Ronzitti, General Secretary of the European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services (CEEP), and Veronique Willems, Secretary General of the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (UEAPME), also spoke of public support for education and professional qualification.