Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion

Employment package

The Employment package (launched April 2012) is a set of policy documents looking into how EU employment policies intersect with a number of other policy areas in support of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. It identifies the EU's biggest job potential areas and the most effective ways for EU countries to create more jobs. Measures are proposed in the following areas:

Supporting job creation

  • Stepping up job creation across the economy by:
    • encouraging labour demand
    • targeting hiring subsidies to new hiring
    • reducing the tax on labour while ensuring fiscal sustainability
    • promoting and supporting self employment, social enterprises and business start-ups
    • transforming informal or undeclared work into regular employment
    • boosting 'take home' pay
    • modernising wage-setting systems to align wages with productivity developments
    • fostering job creation (Key areas: comparing EU countries' performances)
    • investing in personal and household services
  • Harnessing the potential of job-rich sectors: ICT, green economy (analysis), healthcare
  • Mobilising EU funds for job creation: European Social Fund

Restoring the dynamics of labour markets

Improving EU Governance

  • Reinforcing coordination and multilateral surveillance in employment policy by:
  • Effectively involving the social partners in the European semester exercise by setting up an EU tripartite format for monitoring and exchanging views on wage developments
  • Strengthening the link between employment policies and relevant financial instruments. Partnership contracts and operational programmes should be prepared in the light of the priorities of the national reform programmes and national job plans, and revised taking into account the country specific recommendation (see also Blueprint on the future of the EMU)

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