Unemployment and reducing it in Europe is the focus of the Meeting of the Chairpersons of the Committees on Social Affairs and Labour. The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania is to host another event of the parliamentary dimension of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union on 10–11 November 2013 – the Meeting of the Chairpersons of the Committees on Social Affairs and Labour titled “Employment Incentives to Implement the Europe 2020 Strategy”.

The Meeting will be attended by delegates from the Parliaments of European Union Member States, candidate counties and the European Parliament.

The European Commission adopted its Communication Europe 2020: a strategy for growth (further referred to as the Strategy) on 3 March 2010 where the main headline target is 75 per cent of the 20–64 year-olds to be employed.

Employment targets were put forward for debate during the Hungarian presidency of the EU, in the first semester of 2011 at the Joint Meeting of Chairpersons of Education, Science and Research, and Employment Committees when EU Members were beginning to implement the Strategy.

The Seimas Committee on Social Affairs and Labour continues consideration of employment matters while, with the economy on the rise, the implementation of the Strategy and higher employment are as important as they were before. New ways of addressing the problem are being sought as unemployment is still one of the most gruesome problems throughout Europe and 26 million Europeans are out of work. Young people are hit most. The unemployment rate of those under the age of 25 is 23 per cent, which is twice as high as the unemployment rate in the EU in general. There are countries where the youth unemployment rate is above 50 per cent. Young people find it hard to get jobs and, even if they do, the jobs are often seasonal or temporary, or young people accept jobs that do not match their education or skill levels. Another reason is that EU education systems do not fully reflect market needs; and there are barriers to work or studies abroad. “Our shared responsibility must be to ensure that the crisis does not rob young Europeans of their future. … Given the disastrous level of youth unemployment in Europe, the Youth Job Guarantee is vitally important,” said Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, at the European Council on 13 December 2012.

The Meeting of the Chairpersons of the Committees on Social Affairs and Labour, to take place in Vilnius, will debate on ways to increase employment in general and youth employment in particular by 2020, the good practice in implementing youth employment measures and prospects of implementing the Youth Guarantees initiative in Member States. The debate will also extend to developing better matching between labour market needs and youth skills; and insights into effective policy measures to boost youth employment will be shared. Work-life balance as a condition of equal participation of women and men in the labour market will be another item on the Meeting agenda.

The above affairs will be dealt with by the following speakers: Algimanta Pabedinskienė, Minister of Social Security and Labour of the Republic of Lithuania; László Andor, Member of the European Commission for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion; Pierre Mairesse, Director of Directorate A, DG Education and Culture of the European Commission; Virginija Langbakk, Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality; Juan Menéndez-Valdés, Director of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions; Brigitte van der Burg, Chair of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment of the Dutch House of Representatives, Kingdom of the Netherlands; and Tarja Filatov, Chair of the Employment and Equality Committee of the Eduskunta, Parliament of Finland.

Information by the Office of the Committee on Social Affairs and Labour