Zero Unemployment Territories

An EU Initiative for Zero Unemployment Territories

Employment is a key component to combatting poverty, precarity and ensuring social inclusion in our societies. Yet across the EU, nearly 13,5 million people are unemployed and states struggle to cope with long-term unemployment, youth unemployment, and unemployment of the low-skilled. These challenges have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and are likely to increase as the digital and green transitions disrupt our labour markets. Against that difficult backdrop, what can the EU do to stimulate job creation and help reduce unemployment?

In this FEPS Employment Breakfast meeting, we discussed the role that job guarantee programmes in Europe could play to achieve this. What would such an EU initiative look like? Using the example of the “Térritoires Zero Chomeurs de Longue Durée” in France and the Marienthal job guarantee pilot in Austria, we explored what the EU and its Member States can do to develop similar job guarantee programmes that create quality jobs for all unemployed persons who want to work –  but also how it can achieve this by providing jobs with the added-benefit of meeting social and environmental needs.

Agenda

08:45 – Welcome

08:50 – Proposal for an EU Job Guarantee – Aurore Lalucq, MEP

09:00 – The job guarantee in practice: example of Austria – Lukas Lehner, PhD Researcher, University of Oxford, Department of Social Policy and Intervention

09:10 – Térritoires Zero Chomeurs de Longue Durée – Yonnec Polet, Deputy Secretary General of PES, and Member of the Committee of Regions

09:15 – Q&A

9:30 – Closing

About the Employment Policy Breakfast Series – The employment We Want

In this series of policy breakfast meetings, European experts and policy-makers presented potential policy solutions to tackle diverse aspects pertaining to employment. Discussants were invited to comment on the current state of play and policy development, and then the floor was open for interactions from the audience to challenge and strengthen the proposals.

Labour markets are changing and we need a very diligent public sector to avoid the quality and quantity of jobs being compromised further.
What are the initiatives that can be taken? There are plenty!
In this Policy Breakfast Series on “The Employment We Want” we focus on four policies that could help shape a European employment agenda in the near future:

• An EU initiative for Zero Unemployment Territories – 8 September 
• Workers Data Rights – 13 September 
• Skills for a Green Recovery – 15 September 
• Pay Transparency and Gender Equality – 20 September

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