Employment: guidelines for Member states' policies for the year 2001

PURPOSE: to present guidelines for Member States' employment policies for the year 2001 to be taken into account by the Member States in their employment policies. COMMUNITY MEASURE: Council Decision 2001/63/EC on Guidelines for Member States' employment policies for the year 2001. CONTENT: The employment guidelines for 2001 outlined in the Council Decision, include the following: 1) horizontal objectives seeking to build conditions for full employment in a knowledge-based society: - to enhance job opportunities and provide adequate incentives for all those willing to take up gainful employment with the aim of moving towards full employment, recognising Member States' different starting positions, and recognising the fact that full employment is a goal of overall national economic policy; - Member States shall develop comprehensive and coherent strategies for Lifelong Learning, in order to help people acquire and update the skills needed to cope with economic and social changes throughout the entire life cycle; - Member States shall develop a comprehensive partnership with the social partners for the implementation, monitoring and follow-up of the Employment Strategy; - in translating the Employment Guidelines into national policies, Member States will give due attention to all the four pillars and the horizontal objectives by setting their priorities in a balanced manner, so as to respect the integrated nature and equal value of the guidelines; - Member States and the Commission should strengthen the development of common indicators in order to evaluate adequately progress under all four pillars and to underpin the setting of benchmarks and the identification of good practice; 2) With regard to improving employability, the guidelines call for the following measures: - every unemployed person is offered a new start before reaching six months of unemployment in the case of young people, and twelve months of unemployment in the case of adults in the form of training, retraining, work practice, a job, or other employability measures, including more generally, accompanying individual vocational guidance and conselling with a view to effective integration into the labour market; - each Member State will undertake specific measures for the unemployed; - Member States, if appropriate with the social partners, will develop policies for active ageing with the aim of enhancing the capacity of, and incentives for, older workers to remain in the labour force as long as possible; - Member States are called upon to improve the quality of their education and training systems, as well as relevant curricula; - Member States will aim at developing e-learning for all citizens; - Member States will, as appropriate with the social partners, step up their efforts to identify and prevent emerging bottlenecks; - each Member State will seek to prevent discrimination and adopt preventative and active policy measures to promote theintegration into the labour market of disadvantaged groups; 3) As regards developing entrepreneurship and job creation, the Decision contains the followng guidelines: - Member States will give particular attention to reducing significantly the overhead costs and administrative burdens for businesses, in particular when an enterprise is being set up and when hiring additional workers; - Member States will encourage the taking up of entrepreneurial activities through a number of means and they will seek to exploit fully the employment potential of the full range of the services sector to create more and better jobs; - measures to include regional and local levels in implementing the European Employment Strategy. The remaining objectives in the Decision outline measures relating to encouraging adpatability of business and their employees and finally, strengthening equal opportunities policies for women and men.�