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European employers commit to employment in Covid-19 recovery

BusinessEurope and 9 European sectoral employers organisations, including the World Employment Confederation-Europe, released a statement on 24 July making a clear commitment to create the conditions for return to employment, job creation and better skills matching as part of the recovery after the Covid-19 crisis.

Published on 24th July 2020

As the European Union just agreed a recovery plan to get Europe back on track after the Covid-19 crisis, European employers call to “invest the resources made available on important and essential employment-enhancing structural reforms for [our] countries to strengthen their long-term growth potential. The way ahead is to improve the agility of labour markets, avoiding too strict regulations which act as a barrier to job creation.”

The statement, published on 24 July, is signed by BusinessEurope and 9 other European sectoral employers organisations. The World Employment Confederation-Europe is part of this coalition, alongside the construction, banking, cleaning and retail sectors.

European employers point out that Europe’s response to the crisis has so far allowed to contain the employment and social impact of the crisis in a more effective way than has been the case in other world regions, and underlines that strong and autonomous social partners in Europe have been an asset for rapidly designing and implementing fairly balanced crisis-related solutions.

The EU, in common with the rest of the global economy, is presently experiencing the deepest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Whilst the situation remains very uncertain, the European Commission forecast is for the EU economy to fall by about 8.3% this year, far deeper than during the Global Financial crisis in 2009.

BusinessEurope and the signatory European sectoral employers also recall the importance for the European Union to focus on the impacts of the crisis on the skills agenda, notably the increased need for e-learning, and recommend a broadly social partner led approach to employee training and dual learning. Ensuring a safe return to the workplace for all workers is also essential and European employers commit to act responsibly in this respect. Both areas are priorities for the World Employment Confederation-Europe in putting Europe on the road to recovery.

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