EU Executive wants to Hike Employment Rate in 2030

The European Commission says it wants to push the employment rate in the European Union to at least 78 per cent by 2030.

The commission made the announcement of its plan on social rights published on Thursday.

This would represent a rise of about five per cent points, with 73.1 per cent of people aged 20 to 64 having been employed in 2019 it said.

The commission’s strategy came after a spike in the unemployment rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. The unemployment rate also remained at stubbornly high levels during the past few months.

European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said during a press conference that young people were particularly hard-hit.

“We urgently need quality job creation, particularly for young people, where as a result of the crisis, the rise in unemployment was triple that of the general unemployment rate.’’

As part of its strategy, the commission said Europe had to strive to at least half the gender employment gap compared to 2019.

According to the commission, in the third quarter of 2020, 78.3 per cent of men were employed – compared to 66.6 per cent of women.

The pandemic deepened the divide, with women being hit harder by layoffs than men.

“This will be paramount to progress on gender equality and achieve the employment target for the entire working age population,’’ the commission said in a paper addressed to the 27 EU countries.