Guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States

Key points

The EESC:

• welcomes the proposal for updated guidelines on employment policies, aimed at fostering a competitive and sustainable economy, reflecting new labour market needs;
• highlights the importance of upward convergence and of enhancing the European Semester’s role in coordinated economic policy responses;
• stresses the need to strengthen social partners' roles through social dialogue and collective bargaining and the involvement of civil society in employment reforms and policy-making;
• emphasises the need to boost labour supply and improve access to quality jobs, addressing business challenges flowing from staff shortages;
• supports the Commission's call for stronger inclusion policies to promote equal opportunities in employment and career development;
• highlights the importance of strengthening skills for the green and digital transitions and of ensuring access to high-quality lifelong learning;
• calls for fair and decent wages aligned with productivity and competitiveness, promoting collective bargaining and effective data monitoring of wages, while respecting national practices and the autonomy of the social partners;
• calls too for ethical and socially sustainable AI deployment in workplaces, assessing the impact on jobs and work organisation in terms of both opportunities and potential risks;
• stresses the need to modernise social protection to cover all workers, regardless of their form of employment, adapting tax and benefit systems and monitoring redistributive effects;
• encourages further development of policies for affordable housing, homelessness prevention and the effective use of EU funds;
• calls for stronger policies to combat irregular work, promote quality work, improve workplace health and safety, and prevent the spread of informal and precarious working conditions.