EU Focuses On Solving Unemployment Problem

Statistics show that EU Member States

The unemployment of young people is a major feature of the EU job market.

In June this year, the unemployment rate of young people in the European Union was 20.3%, much higher than the average level.

In Spain and Estonia, the unemployment rate of young people is 40.3% and 39.8% respectively.

The EU's recession is considered to be the direct cause of the high unemployment rate in the EU.

The international financial crisis, which began in 2008, has caused the European Union to fall into a serious recession. The EU unemployment situation has been grim since then.

Greece's sovereign debt crisis erupted earlier this year, which caused the euro exchange rate to fall, and European stock markets tumbled, making the euro area face the most severe test since the creation of the euro.

To prevent the spread of the crisis, the EU recently reached a total stability and rescue mechanism totaling 750 billion euros to enhance confidence and ensure the stability of the euro.

At the same time, the European Union Council urged member states to strictly enforce fiscal discipline and reduce the proportion of fiscal deficits in GDP to below 3%.

This means that the EU Member States must tighten their belts for a long time to come. The government can not afford more financial resources to stimulate economic growth.

Under the current circumstances, EU enterprises neither want nor dare to increase investment and expand production capacity. Consumers are also reluctant to let go of their pocket money. Consumer demand has been significantly constrained, and sales performance has been in a doldrums. This further compresses the existing capacity of EU enterprises.

Since the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2008, the European Union and its member governments have taken a series of measures to encourage enterprises to retain their jobs. However, the number of layoffs in EU enterprises has been increasing.

The high unemployment rate in the EU is also closely related to the structural problems existing in the EU itself.

First of all, the EU high-tech industry failed to provide enough employment opportunities.

Since the mid 80s of last century, the EU has lagged behind the US, Japan and other countries in the field of high technology.

In the United States and Japan, new industries such as information and communication technology, computer networks and other industries are developing rapidly, creating a large number of new job opportunities.

In contrast, most of the emerging industries in the EU are relatively slow in development, and the traditional high-end manufacturing industry accounts for a relatively high proportion in the economy.

For example, in Spain, where unemployment ranks first in the European Union, about 30% of the employed persons are directly or indirectly engaged in the construction industry.

Secondly, the EU's current labor market and welfare system affect the normal development of the employment market.

Most EU member states are very strict in labour market regulation.

Although the strict regulation of labor market can protect employees' interests, the negative impact of this overprotective policy is not only improving the production cost of enterprises, but also making the employment volume of enterprises unable to respond to fluctuations in market demand.

At the same time, the high welfare of some EU Member States makes quite a few people lack the motivation to find jobs and become so-called voluntary unemployed.

In addition, the high labor costs associated with EU tax and welfare policies aggravate the burden of recruitment.

In 2010, the EU's average corporate income tax was 23.2%, such as France and other Western European countries, corporate income tax more than 30%.

In addition to paying corporate income tax, European Union enterprises should also pay for training, paid vacation, welfare expenses and other expenses.

The result is that the labor cost is too high, the rate of return on investment of enterprises is low, and technological upgrading is slow, resulting in the weak and insufficient employment demand, which ultimately restricts the growth of employment.

In recent years, the EU has raised the issue of unemployment to a crucial position. Barroso, chairman of the European Commission, said that promoting employment is the primary objective of the work of the European Commission.

Indeed, expanding employment and reducing unemployment has become an important part of the agenda of the recent EU leaders summit.

In May 2009, the leaders of the 27 member states of the European Union held a special EU summit on employment in Prague. The conference reached a consensus on how to protect and promote employment, and formulated ten specific measures.

These ten measures are mainly focused on "enhancing training for workers" and "establishing a more inclusive, reasonably mobile, effective balance of supply and demand labor market", as well as "providing support for unemployed people".

One of the most interesting concerns is that enterprises are required to create employment opportunities by reducing the non wage labor costs and reducing their working hours to keep as many people as possible.

The European Union summer summit held in June 2009 adopted the "joint responsibility for employment responsibility" scheme put forward by the European Commission. Its core contents mainly include three aspects: first, to maintain employment rate, create employment opportunities and enhance employment mobility; two, improve labor skills, meet the needs of labor market, and increase employment channels; three, enterprises are required to increase their apprenticeship and internship positions.

In June 2010, the "2020 European strategy" formally adopted by the leaders of the 27 EU countries at the EU summit will expand employment as the three key areas for the development of the EU in the next ten years, and put forward specific measures to increase employment, such as raising the level of education and training, encouraging knowledge innovation and so on.