The job-creating potential of the Information Society is highlighted in the Employment Guidelines to the Vienna Summit. Our IT sector in Europe is rich in job potential, with half a million identified vacancies for the time being. The Commission report on 'Job opportunities in the Information Society' will examine how Member States can best exploit this potential. The third pillar is about adaptability for businesses and workers, It is about our capacity to respond to change, about a new balance between flexibility and security, about new forms of work organisation. The fourth pillar is about equal opportunities and about women and men working on equal terms, with equal responsibilities.
Equality is the basis for the long-term growth capacity of our economy.
In other words, a matter of social justice and a matter of economic reality. While talking about equality in the Information Society, I want to draw your attention to the needs and potential of people with disabilities. Raising the employment levels of disabled people is a European social policy priority. These moves are part of a much broader process, in which we replace the standardised workplace of the average worker with workplaces that are adapted to the many different needs that we all have as individuals. Investment in people's skills, women or men, employed or unemployed, young or old, with or without disabilities, is the Union's most ambitious project of the next decade.