Published on 16th September 2021
Economies and labour markets are recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic; yet, economic and social challenges remain. The World Employment Confederation-Europe shares this assessment put forward by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen in her annual ‘State of the Union’ speech. “Supporting and sustaining the economic recovery should be built on diverse and new forms of work, digital skills and social protection for diverse forms of work” says Herman Nijns, President of the World Employment Confederation-Europe.
Ursula von der Leyen emphasised the importance of the social market economy and underlined the need to implement the European Pillar of Social Rights. Specific focus should be laid on looking at young people and those on the labour market who are most in need of protection. The World Employment Confederation-Europe fully shares this vision of protecting the future of the young people. “The private employment services industry, its agency work and career management services play a key role in fostering labour market transitions, in upskilling and providing hope and confidence to young people”, says Menno Bart, Executive Committee member of the World Employment Confederation-Europe. As the voice of private employment services sector, the World Employment Confederation-Europe welcomes the announced ALMA initiative, which aims at providing temporary work experience in other countries to young people. The sector stands ready to facilitate the roll-out of this initiative in cooperation with public employment services.
The employment and social affairs priorities outlined by President von der Leyen align very much to the World Employment Confederation-Europe vision of fostering recovery, reform and resilience during and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic, as defined in our Manifesto released in June 2021. The World Employment Confederation-Europe calls for building the recovery on four key dimensions, namely fostering the recovery by supporting transitions to new economies, progressing on reforms by driving social purpose and innovation, enhancing resilience by managing labour market risks and tackling the unemployment and finally sustaining resilience by fostering responsible intermediation by the private employment services industry.
