FEPS Weekly Newsletter 9 Sept 2022

On the day the EU Commission unveiled the much-awaited EU Care Strategy, we published our new policy brief series authored by Prof. Jayati Ghosh.

Care work is already one of the most essential forms of human work, and is likely to become even more significant in the coming years.

Yet, it is an area that has been neglected in terms of both academic study and active policy engagement. Even now, despite the continuing pandemic, investment in care continues to be hugely underprovided, especially by governments.

In these three policy briefs, Prof. Jayati Ghosh identifies common challenges and possible good practices, whilst drawing concrete recommendations:

• The structure of care work and inequalities among care workers
• Defining Care: conceptualisations and particularities
• Recognising and rewarding care work: the role of public policies

As Europe faces structural unemployment, this policy brief by MEP Aurore Lalucq and Prof. Pavlina Tcherneva proposes the establishment of a public Job Guarantee for job creation in areas of unmet social need, prioritising care and environmental services.

Building on successful local initiatives, the Guarantee would reduce the significant costs and deleterious effects of unemployment while providing the labour force and public sector the capacity to tackle social and environmental challenges. Read more

This initiative was also discussed during the first event of the Employment Policy Breakfast series that took place this week: Zero Unemployment Territories.