A4-0166/95

Resolution on a coherent employment strategy for the European Union

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, particularly Articles 2, 3a, 103(2) and 118 thereof,

- having regard to Rule 135 of its Rules of Procedure,

- having regard to its decision of 20 July 1994 on the setting up, number of members, mandate, powers and responsibilities of a temporary committee on employment ((OJ C 261, 19.9.1994, p. 27.)), particularly paragraph 2, third subparagraph thereof,

- having regard to the decisions of the European Council at its meetings at Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Brussels, Corfu, Essen and Cannes,

- having regard to the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment (COM(93)0700),

- having regard to the Commission report 'Employment in Europe 1994' (COM(94)0381),

- having regard to the Communication from the Commission to the Council on the Follow-up to the Essen European Council on Employment (COM(95)0074),

- having regard to its resolutions of 9 March 1994 on the Commission White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment ((OJ C 91, 28.03.1994, p. 124.)), 10 March 1994 on employment in Europe ((OJ C 91, 28.03.1994, p. 224.)), 1 December 1994 on an action plan on employment policy to be adopted at the Essen European Council meeting of 9-10 December 1994 ((OJ C 363, 19.12.1994, p. 62.)) and of 7 April 1995 on the Commission's Annual Economic Report for 1995 and the Council's report on the implementation of the broad economic policy guidelines ((Minutes, of that sitting, Part II, Item 10.)),

- having regard to the report of the International Labour Office on world employment 1995, which recognizes that high levels of unemployment spawn a host of problems including a growing inequality and social exclusion, increasing economic insecurity and human suffering, and which concludes that there would be 'vast benefits from a renewed commitment by all nations to the objective of full employment',

- taking into account the Joint Opinion drawn up by the Macroeconomic Group of the Social Dialogue under the title 'The Social Partners' Guidelines for Turning Recovery into a Sustained and Job-Creating Growth Process¨ of 16 May 1995, signed by the European Trade Unions Confederation (ETUC), the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederation of Europe (UNICE) and the Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation (ECPE),

- having regard to the report of its Temporary Committee on Employment and to the opinions of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment and the Committee on Regional Policy (A4-0166/95),

A. whereas the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment put forward proposals the objective of which was to create 15 million new jobs in the European Union by the end of the century,

B. whereas the European Union must remain committed to this objective if it is not to lose the confidence of its citizens; whereas failure would risk undermining popular support for the goal of European integration itself,

C. whereas the fight against social exclusion which takes into account the unemployed and in particular the long-term unemployed must be addressed as a top priority by national measures and Community actions including the Structural Funds, the new Community initiatives and the Fourth Poverty Programme,

D. whereas economic and monetary union will in time create a more stable economic environment and facilitate action to create employment but progress towards it will require further action to assist job creation and ensure social cohesion,

E. whereas restoring a high level of employment is one of the means of reducing debt and annual deficits by reducing unemployment compensation and generating direct and indirect tax revenues from those newly in work,

F. whereas net achievement of the fifteen million jobs target of the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment requires that the European Union adopt a coherent employment strategy which must be based first and foremost on the recognition that the efforts of the European Union, Member States, regional and local authorities and social partners need to combine effective measures at each appropriate level; whereas financial policy coordination will without doubt be an important means of achieving this,

G. whereas employment strategies demand that policy be directed not only at carrying out structural reforms designed to enhance job-creation as a direct consequence of economic growth but also at ensuring that such growth is sustainable, environment-friendly and increases the competitiveness of the European economy,

H. having regard to the increase in the number of decisions to restructure, relocate and close transnational undertakings, causing not only a general decline in employment but also a climate of growing uncertainty among workers and the public as a whole,

I. underlining the importance of education and training as an integral part of employment policy and welcoming recent Council decisions in this field,

J. whereas, with due regard for the different levels of responsibility in this area, employment strategies need to be accompanied by a monitoring, coordination and cooperation procedure in which performance is measured against agreed criteria, such a procedure being conducted in the most transparent manner possible,

K. whereas the decisions taken at the Essen European Council concentrate on certain aspects of structural reform; whereas, however, they are far too timid and fall short of implementing the employment strategy which had already been agreed for the European Union, which should not only make progress with the trans-European networks, but also provide European investment aid to small and medium enterprises within the framework of a balanced regional policy,

L. whereas these earlier decisions need to be supplemented, as do the Essen decisions, particularly as regards the role of the European Union, and its institutions in investment and employment policy, the growth aspects of job creation and the establishment of a monitoring procedure by which Member State actions can be evaluated,

I. POLICIES

1. Believes that the objective of the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, of creating 15 million new, long-term jobs, to halve the rate of unemployment, must be one of the greatest priorities for the Union, the Member States, regional and local authorities and the social partners, and that continuing mass unemployment threatens social and economic cohesion, acceptance and progress to further European integration and the future of the democratic system;

2. Calls on the European Council and Commission to incorporate the right to work in the Treaty when it is revised at the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference;

3. Believes that a coherent strategy for employment must mean that all policies having an impact on employment, namely economic, financial, structural, environmental, industrial, commercial and social, are integrated into an overarching policy dedicated to job creation; urges the European Union and Member States to carry out such an integrated approach and to ensure that the strategies of each are complementary to one another; nevertheless, while such an integrated approach must be stressed, sets out below policy areas it considers as having priority;

4. Notes that the Community gives extensive financial support to socio-economic development through its Structural Funds, Cohesion Fund and Community Initiatives and insists that these funds be incorporated by Member States and the Community in an effective and coordinated fashion into their employment strategies with special reference being given to different target groups facing particular difficulties in finding or developing employment opportunities as well as SMEs and local economic actors;

5. Calls on the Commission and Council to endeavour to implement the policy of major infrastructure projects which will be a new departure for European integration and the fight against unemployment; deplores the successive failures of the Essen and Cannes summits in this area;

6. Believes that a coherent employment strategy must emphasize equality between men and women; the difficulties which women face in finding work currently constitute an enormous problem on which particular attention will be focused; equality in paid and non-paid working time must be considered as an integral part of such a policy;

7. Calls on the Commission to endeavour to introduce social legislation in accordance with the French Presidency's memorandum in the World Trade Organization; calls on the Commission to apply the arrangements suspending the Community's system of generalized preferences with regard to the practice of any form of forced labour and the export of products manufactured in prisons;

8. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to urge Community-scale undertakings to refrain from taking decisions which have adverse effects on employment, of which workers have not previously been informed, on which no prior consultation has taken place and which are not accompanied by a credible retraining plan in accordance with the aim of Directive 94/45/EC ((OJ L 254, 30.9.1994, p. 64.)),

a) Macroeconomic policy

9. Recognizes that the fulfilment of the convergence criteria laid down in the Treaty on European Union requires that the Member States pursue sound budgetary and monetary policies; expects that this will create a more stable economic climate and so help boost investment and employment; believes, however, that progress to economic and monetary union needs to be balanced with an active employment strategy and that this will require additional, Union level, financial instruments capable of meeting investment and job- creation objectives; compliments the European Council, therefore, on its foresight in agreeing to the establishment of the EIF and Union Bonds and urges that these instruments be used in the most effective and efficient way possible and, where necessary, they be expanded so as to maintain public and private investment, boost SME development, create jobs and offset the possible deflationary impact of convergence plans;

10. Asks the Commission to carry out an on-going assessment to clarify the correlation of employment policy with the other economic policies, in particular monetary and interest-rate policy, and to ascertain how these policies can help to maintain a high level of activity and hence a low level of unemployment;

11. Believes that policies designed to maintain and increase both growth and investment in human and physical capital should, inter alia, make provision for a doubling of expenditure on R& D, thereby bringing Europe into line with the economic areas which are in direct competition with the European Union; such policies should aim at a spending target of 3% of European Union GDP to be dedicated to R& D not later than the year 2000;

12. Notes the findings of the Commission's 1995 Annual Economic Report and its conclusion that growth can be sustained in the European economy until the year 2000; nevertheless, requests that the Commission publish its own estimates of both the potential deflationary effects of fulfilling the financial convergence criteria and the feasibility of offsetting this through expansion of the borrowing and lending facilities of Union Bonds and the European Investment Fund;

b) Reduction of working time and new methods of work organization

13. Recognizes that investments and economic growth alone will not be sufficient to achieve the fifteen million jobs target but considers that, among other measures, a better distribution of available work should contribute to a solution in the short term;

14. Believes that, while systems of leave for family, personal or training reasons, the encouragement of part-time working and reductions in working time, whether their effects are felt in days, weeks, years or in the course of a lifetime, are not the only solution, they always offer a possible way of dovetailing supply and demand in the labour market more closely and satisfying people's wish for a better quality of life and greater freedom to organize their own time;

15. Considers that the example of firms engaging in negotiations with their staff for a reduction of working time confirms the effectiveness of this approach in terms of employment and job creation, but notes that this practice is not advancing quickly enough to contribute to the overall solution to the problem; considers that this lack of progress is also due to a combination of factors - disregarding qualitative drawbacks - namely, that employers cannot afford higher unit costs, which would jeopardize their competitiveness, and that employees, particularly those in the modest income groups, cannot afford to lose a substantial part of their income without any compensatory wage adjustment;

16. Considers, therefore, that the project of reducing working hours would be facilitated by the establishment of a system of direct or indirect aid, intended either to pay for new recruitment or to offset wage reductions, with priority given to modest wage-earners; believes that in most Member States this aid could be funded from the savings made in spending on unemployment assistance whenever an unemployed person covered by them entered employment; Member States can allow these funds to be reallocated, but must not in any circumstances lay down precise rules governing either the reduction of working time or partial or total compensatory wage adjustments, which must be contractually negotiated by the social partners;

17. Calls on the Commission to invite the social partners and report on the impact of the Directive concerning certain aspects of working time which is due to be implemented in all Member States by 23 November 1996; calls on the Commission, further, to continue its discussions with the social partners and/or studies on the activities or sectors excluded from the Directive;

18. Is convinced that the introduction of a variety of leave arrangements for family, personal or training reasons would answer people's need to combine their work, social and family lives more effectively; is convinced that these arrangements would increase the flexibility of work management and that career breaks of this kind would create job opportunities for the unemployed people recruited in their place; calls accordingly on the social partners to conclude an agreement in this area at European level;

19. Considers that the internal flexibility of undertakings and work organization cannot be improved without taking into account the specific situation of each production sector and each undertaking; considers that this must reflect the need to improve the quality of life; considers, therefore, that the social partners must play a crucial role in the process of change, by means of negotiation and consensus rather than imposed solutions;

20. Calls on the social partners, the Member States and the Union to take measures to promote part-time work, reduction in annual and life working time, the interruption of professional activity, paid leave for vocational training and other forms of reduction in working time, while ensuring that these measures do not jeopardize the competitiveness of undertakings or the social protection of employees and that services on which employees are dependent are provided;

21. Warns against exaggerated hopes that reduced working time can be translated entirely into a reduction of unemployment, since some of the resulting labour supply will not be matched by corresponding demand, and calls in addition for specific efforts to achieve the best possible translation of reduced working time into the creation and filling of new jobs;

22. Calls on the Commission to submit as a priority a report on the possible trade-off between early retirement and recruitment of the long-term unemployed;

23. Recommends that the adoption of new and more flexible work practices and adaptation to new methods of work organization be promoted within the terms of reference of the new Objective 4 of the Structural Funds and the ADAPT Initiative so as to improve efficiency and develop human resources; considers, however, that moves to make the organization of work more flexible should be accompanied by corresponding new regulations governing the labour market, set if necessary at the European level, so as to avoid the risks of social dumping and that the introduction of flexible work practices be the subject of agreement between the social partners;

24. Reiterates its view that labour market deregulation is not in itself a means to create new jobs and must on no account lead to an increase in the numbers of 'second-class jobs' characterized by very low wages, poor working conditions, lack of security, and limited benefits;

25. Believes that labour market flexibility defined in terms of adaptability and readiness to adopt new work patterns or methods of work organization can benefit both employees and employers and is an important factor for ensuring that European enterprises remain competitive and that human resources are most effective;

26. Reiterates its call for European measures to facilitate cross-border job mobility, particularly in border areas, by the removal of the many remaining obstacles particularly in the areas of taxation, social security and access to social services and health care, and calls for the introduction of a 'European assessment' to ascertain the impact of planned national measures on cross-border migration of workers within the Union;

c) New employment areas and raising the employment content of jobs

27. Believes that the European Council at Essen was right to recommend to Member States that initiatives should be promoted to create jobs which take account of new requirements; takes the view that there is great potential for new employment in the field of professional services in the personal, family, social, cultural, tourism, leisure and especially environmental sectors but that, for this to be achieved, Member States have to engage in, and the European Union has to encourage, imaginative policy choices; in particular stresses that the Member States must implement policies, especially fiscal policies, designed both to encourage private demand to shift towards social, cultural and environmental assets and to stimulate supply, by promoting partnership between the public and private sectors and encouraging initiatives by cooperatives and voluntary organizations; this would make it possible to pursue simultaneously the objective of improving the efficiency and quality of social, cultural and environmental services and promoting employment;

28. Calls on the Commission, on the basis of research and enquiries already carried out, to submit a comprehensive report on experience gained in this field in the different countries, also formulating proposals and suggestions on ways and means which may usefully be applied, in the Union and in the Member States, for developing these new areas for economic and social initiatives;

29. Points out that productivity or economic viability in sectors such as education, health or social services cannot be measured according to the same criteria as productivity or viability in other production sectors, although these sectors can be managed effectively in such a way as to develop their potential for job creation and at the same time improve the quality of the service;

30. Points out that, despite the low level of funding provided for the three Poverty Programmes, some success was achieved in the creation of employment and accordingly renews its call on the Council to finally adopt the Poverty Four Programme in order to reinforce solidarity with the most disadvantaged groups in society;

31. Considers that the development of a sector geared to regional and social requirements, as a third sector between the trade-oriented private sector and the public sector, organized primarily on the basis of socially beneficial organizations and cooperatives, constitutes an important task for the future;

32. Takes the view that there is also job-creating and job-saving potential to be exploited through the application of new information technologies so long as these technologies are used judiciously in all their applications in the private, non-profit and public sectors in a way which increases opportunities and choices for all citizens and not only a privileged minority;

33. Urges that, in order to assist Member State policy development, the Commission in conjunction with relevant Councils organize fora in which exchanges of ideas, initiatives and good practice in the field of new employment areas can take place and proposes that the Council should provide appropriate funding for Member States' projects in this field;

d) SMEs

34. Is convinced that SMEs, and in particular very small and micro-sized enterprises, have the greatest job creating potential of all enterprise types; notes that the Essen recommendations have across the board relevance for SMEs; recommends to Member States that in implementing their multi- annual programmes in the areas identified in the Essen decisions that they pay particular attention to the needs and interests of SMEs;

35. Insists that support be given for the economic development of SMEs in general, and in particular those SMEs which are innovative, which export, invest, recruit and train staff and whose activities are compatible with the environment; urges that this be done by creating a proper fiscal, social, administrative and legal framework which encourages good recruitment decisions; notes in this connection the particular importance of the completion of the internal market, inter alia in the field of technical specifications, standardization and certification, of the creation of better funding opportunities, of cross-border cooperation between businesses, of access to public contracts and to Community policies in areas such as research and development, the Structural Funds and the Community initiatives, for both the foundation and the further development of SMEs, and of a stable, transparent and enforceable legal framework and a simplification of bureaucratic procedures. Calls on the Commission to draw up a special programme for SME management training and, in addition, refers to the need for Member States to place more emphasis on entrepreneurial skills;

36. Notes that the high cost of labour especially in the services sector weighs particularly heavily on some SMEs; a reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive services may go some way towards alleviating this burden;

37. Insists on a more active policy by the Union and its financial intermediaries such as the EIB and the EIF to reinforce regional credit institutions in association with regional development agencies in the promotion and reinforcement of local entrepreneurship; this approach may also be used to promote local markets for risk capital (stock exchanges) and to link them to national and European networks;

e) Indirect wage costs

38. Welcomes the idea of fixed-term labour cost contributions for the reintegration of the long-term unemployed in the labour market and the proposals for making public labour exchanges more efficient in order for them to be more attractive to the employers and to enable job-seekers to be aware of demand for work;

39. Recognizes moreover that private placement agencies may also have a role to play in recruiting people for the jobs available;

40. Calls on the Member States and the two sides of industry to exploit the increase in productivity principally to create additional jobs;

41. Notes that the funding of social security systems can no longer be permitted to represent a damper to employment to the same extent as at present;

42. Considers it would be useful if the European Union carried out a policy of coordination vis-à-vis the Member States, aimed at a gradual levelling of wage structures as far as taxation is concerned and of contributions, which should be reduced selectively, so as to represent an effective encouragement to recruitment, by devising compensatory taxes such as an environmental tax;

43. Considers that savings on the expenditure side must be accompanied by an attempt to find new sources of funding for social security systems, including compensatory measures to avoid undesirable effects on the distribution of income, in particular for the neediest households and individuals; warns that this must not, however, result in the privatization of social risks; is of the opinion that the financing of social security systems must remain a collective task;

44. Notes that a consensus exists on the need to reduce non-wage labour costs and that some Member States have already taken measures in this area, offsetting public revenue loss by shifting charges and contributions to other sources; believes that the results of these policies should be carefully studied and the findings widely published and distributed;

45. Considers, in view of the development of the internal market, that it is appropriate to carry on discussions at European Union level on alternative sources of funding, and that the following possibilities currently exist: CO2 tax, a tax on speculative capital movement, advance levy on investment income and particular VAT rates;

f) Training and the development of human resources

46. Points out that vocational training will be attractive only if vocational education provides the basis for lifelong learning and enhances the opportunity to develop an individual's prospects of employment and that it will hold out prospects for the future only if excessively early specialization is avoided, so that trainees do not enter a one-way street leading to an occupation which turns out to have no future;

47. Calls therefore for

- a continuous process of modernization of content and requirements to safeguard and further improve the quality of vocational training and foster creativity and personal commitment,

- the vocational training on offer to be rendered attractive by promoting alternating systems,

- a contribution to be made towards improving the ability of men and women to combine employment with parenthood by making appropriate qualifications available,

- a general improvement in the opportunities for women to participate actively in the economy and in the life of society,

- the integration of training, forms of supplementary qualifications to accompany training, and further training to develop new, transparent vocational training which is more coherent in terms of content and times when it can be taken,

- the creation of better career opportunities for employees by introducing permanent education and training systems,

- an improvement in the transparency of further training courses on offer,

- an increase in financial support for further training and an improvement in information on training, promotion and further training prospects,

- an improvement in the training prospects of all young people,

- the option of training for young people who, despite all efforts, do not embark upon vocational training and for adults who have no vocational qualifications,

- special training or further training courses to be provided for older workers, those with health problems and/or the less highly qualified,

- access to a broad vocational spectrum to be ensured during the reorganization of occupations in which training is provided so that the training may prove useful in the long term;

g) Economic democracy

48. Points out that the enhancement of productivity is highly correlated with information, consultation and participation of employees in decision-making in their enterprise, especially where transition to more flexible production methods is concerned; believes that such involvement of employees in the enterprise and at the local, regional, national and EU level should be integral to the new models of economic and social development which must be devised in order to develop sustainability and increase the competitiveness of business in the Union; stresses in this context the importance, in terms of methods and substance, of the document of 16 May 1995 entitled 'The Social Partners - Guidelines for turning the recovery into a sustained and job-creating growth process';

49. Notes the importance of social dialogue at all levels; stresses that the credibility of European SME policy will be seriously jeopardized if the Commission does not take urgent measures to ensure the full participation of SME representatives at all levels of the European social dialogue;

h) Public sector

50. Takes the view that, particularly in view of the challenges posed by ecological restructuring and the new technologies, the redefinition and establishment of a forward-looking public sector constitutes one of the key political tasks which will be relevant to employment policy, equality between men and women and social protection on society;

II. PROCEDURES

51. Considers that labour policy and economic policy must not be viewed separately, that cooperation between the Member States and the European Union institutions should be encouraged and that employment should become a central focus of Community policies;

52. Takes note of the Commission's Communication to the Council on the follow-up to the Essen European Council on employment which represents a basis for building a surveillance procedure by which to monitor employment policy and which are a significant response to the ideas set out in paragraphs 30 and 39 of its above-mentioned resolution of 1 December 1994; believes, however, that this is only a first step in the elaboration of a procedure that evaluates the performance of the Member States and the Union in achieving employment and social union;

53. Recommends, in view of the scale of the challenge of achieving both the financial convergence criteria for a single currency and the employment objectives of the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment (or, in the words of the Treaty on European Union, 'the objective of a high level of employment and of social protection and the quality of life, and economic and social cohesion and solidarity among Member States'), that the Annual Economic Report and Employment Report should also be submitted to the national and regional parliaments for information and with a view to follow- up;

54. As regards the surveillance procedures in the first half of the year set out in the Commission's Communication proposes that:

- the Commission publish its Annual Economic Report as early as possible in the year and that it include an evaluation of the implementation of the broad economic guidelines adopted the previous year,

- that the initial opinion of the European Parliament should be communicated to national parliaments for them to take into account in their own debates on the report,

- the Social Affairs Ministers be involved in the formulation of the economic guidelines given that these will include a larger and more developed employment chapter,

- the Commission report and discuss its priorities for the economic guidelines before a joint meeting of the Committees on Economic and Monetary Affairs and on Social Affairs and Employment,

- the Commission not adopt its recommendation for the guidelines before Parliament adopts its report on this subject,

- the Council send to Parliament as soon as possible the final text of the guidelines,

- the social partners be involved;

55. As regards the surveillance procedure in the second half of the year,

- urges the Commission to publish its Employment Report in July and its overview report in September,

- expects the Commission to report on and discuss its priorities for the overview report before a joint meeting of the Committees on Social Affairs and Employment and Economic and Monetary Affairs,

- expects the overview report to include an assessment of the Member States employment policies both from an overall point of view and from the point of view of the implementation of Member States multi-annual programmes,

- suggests that the inputs of the Social Affairs and ECOFIN Councils would be made more coherent if those Councils were to hold during this period a joint meeting,

- believes that the Commission's report to the European Council and the conclusions of the European Council itself should take the form of 'employment guidelines' (akin to the economic guidelines) which suggest to Member States improvements to their employment policies in general and their multi-annual programmes in particular,

- proposes that the social partners be involved;

56. Stresses that the Standing Committee on Employment (SCE) should play a prominent role in the new surveillance procedure; hopes that this will be the focus of the new proposal on enhancing the status of the SCE that the Commission has promised in its Medium Term Social Action Programme; states its wish to be represented on the SCE as part of the proposal to enhance its role;

57. Believes that a surveillance procedure must be equipped with measurable criteria to be used to measure performance and where appropriate set targets; suggests that criteria should be related both to employment policy in general as well as to the five actions areas established at Essen;

58. Proposes, for the five Essen areas, that Member State policy actions in pursuit of the recommendations and commitments of the European Council should be effectively monitored and assessed and that Member States need to evaluate their actions and demonstrate how specific policy changes are contributing to the achievement of policy goals;

59. Believes that Parliament must be fully involved in the new surveillance procedures in order to ensure that its policy objectives are pursued; instructs, therefore, its two standing committees principally involved with employment policy, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, along with other standing committees with an interest in employment,

- to draw up for each May plenary session a joint report on the Commission's Annual Economic Report and recommended economic guidelines,

- to draw up for each November plenary session a joint report on the employment overview report;

- in cooperation with all other relevant committees, to work out the modalities by which the above requirements are organized;

60. Declares that the permanent abolition of unemployment and the achievement of full employment require a degree of social restructuring which goes beyond the recommendations made here; it presupposes radical changes in the whole system of values which impregnate economic life in today's Europe; calls on all those who have faith in humanistic values to join forces for the achievement of the necessary changes;

61. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, Commission, Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.