LABOUR: EU Wants Knowledge to Save Jobs

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sanja Romic

BRUSSELS, Apr 19 2004 (IPS) - Knowledge-based industry is being given a new push in an expanding EU to counter growing unemployment.

A large number of unemployed will be added to the European Union (EU) when it takes on ten new members (Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) May 1.

Stagnant employment and increasing long-term unemployment in the new member states are creating fears of a big surge in the inflow of a labour force into the old member states.

"Given the income gap of more than 50 percent between the current EU and the acceding countries in central and eastern Europe, an uninformed audience can easily be led to believe that large numbers of the 74 million new members of the EU will descend upon the old member states after enlargement," Peter de Rooij from the European Training Foundation (ETF) told IPS.

But De Rooij adds that, if and when this were to happen, such migration would be confined largely to well-trained and highly educated singles.

The EU hopes meanwhile that millions of new jobs in knowledge-based industries would meet the demands of both the old and the new.

European Commissioner Pedro Solbes believes the solution to the problem lies in "effective economic integration and implementation of the Lisbon Agenda."

The Lisbon agenda, which was agreed by EU ministers in 2000 aims at making the EU the world’s most competitive and knowledge-based economy by 2010. The goal of the agenda is to create 10 million jobs by then.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has been taking measures to bring in a more innovative and knowledge-based economy.

"More investment in research would create two million extra jobs in Europe and eight researchers out of 100 employments, as compared to 5.5 per 1,000, which is the situation right now," Phillippe Busquin, European Commissioner in charge of research said in a statement April 5.

This would mean one researcher in every 12 persons employed, as opposed to one in every 200 jobs at present.

Busquin blames the policies of member states that have led to a massive brain-drain from Europe to more-researcher friendly areas such as the United States.

This is also the main finding of a report published by the European Commission March 26 which says that "measures taken at European level are only a part of the formula for putting the Lisbon strategy on the right track; numerous reforms and investments, which are the responsibility of the member states, have yet to be achieved."

In another negative development, a skilled work-force deficiency has led many high-tech industries in Europe to shut down and move where skilled labour is to be found.

Students in the acceding states have particularly been missing out on the benefits of an industrial career for lack of a link between industries and universities, says an expert group on Europe’s human resources for science and technology at the European Commission.

There will be advantages from a flow of labour too. UK economists Helena Marques and Hugh Metcalf concede that an eastern labour force migration to the UK is expected to boost its high-tech industries, but they say the trend could prove detrimental to Britain’s low-skill, labour-intensive industries such as textiles, leather, clothing and leisure.

There is also promise of good news within the new ten. Unemployment within those countries is expected to come down as a result of economic growth, public investment and growth in foreign direct investment, the ETF suggests.

The European Commission’s spring economic forecast 2004 presented April 7 predicts varied acceleration inside EU10. It says the acceleration will be strongest in Poland, for which an overall economic growth of 1.7 percent in 2004 and 2.3 percent in 2005 is predicted.