Employment: guidelines for Member States' policies, review. Employment package

PURPOSE : to present the Guidelines for Member States' employment policies. CONTENT : the Guidelines focus on the successful implementation of the Lisbon agenda. This calls for the employment policies of Member States to foster, in a balanced manner, three overarching objectives. These are: 1) Full employment : Member States will aim to achieve this by implementing a comprehensive policy approach incorporating demand and supply side measures and thus raise employment rates towards the Lisbon and Stockholm targets. To recall, these are: - An overall employment rate of 67% in 2005 and 70% in 2010 - An employment rate for women of 57% in 2005 and 60% in 2010 - An employment rate of 50% for older workers in 2010. 2) Quality and productivity at work : The concept of quality encompasses intrinsic job quality, skills, lifelong learning and career development, gender equality, health and safety at work, flexibility and security, inclusion and access to the labour market, work organisation and work-life balance, social dialogue and worker involvement, diversity and non-discrimination, and overall work performance. 3) Social cohesion and inclusion : this involves promoting access to stable and quality employment for all women and men who are capable of working; combating discrimination on the labour market; and preventing the exclusion of people from the world of work. Economic and social cohesion should be promoted by reducing regional employment and unemployment disparities, tackling the employment problems of deprived areas in the EU and positively supporting economic and social restructuring. Policies should contribute notably to achieving a substantial reduction by 2010 in the proportion of working poor in all Member States. The achievement of these objectives requires further structural reforms concentrating on 10 key and equally important priorities: - active and preventative measures for the unemployed and inactive; - foster entrepreneurship and promote job creation; - address change and promote adaptability in work; - more and better investment in human capital and strategies for lifelong learning; - increase labour supply and promote active ageing; - gender equality; - promote integration and combat discrimination against people at a disadvantage in the labour market; - make work pay through incentives to enhance work attractiveness; - transform undeclared work into regular employment; - promote occupational and geographical mobility and improve job matching. Finally, the Guidelines emphasise the promotion of better governance, partnership and delivery, which involves the mobilisation of all relevant actors and the strong involvement of social partners.�