The ETUI, together with the ETUC, have just published the third ' Benchmarking Working Europe' Report, which was presented at the Social Summit on 19 March 2003.

The current economic downturn poses a challenge to the ambitious goals set at the European Council Lisbon Summit in 2000. The ETUC and the ETUI, therefore, continue to assess whether the employment policy progress of recent years was just a fair-weather success or whether the European Employment Strategy can make an effective contribution to the sustained creation of 'more and better jobs'. Emilio Gabaglio, General Secretary of the ETUC, and Reiner Hoffmann, Director of the ETUI, state that 'the strengthening and further development of the social dimension will ultimately be one factor in determining whether, under the changed conditions of international competition, a united Europe can remain successful'.  

The ETUC/ETUI Benchmarking Working Europe report provides close monitoring of success and failure in the fields of employment and social policies in the European Union and accession countries. Additionally, it provides a critical assessment of social indicators in areas vital for trade unions and of crucial importance for the social dimension of Europe.

Major conclusions from the benchmarking report are:

• despite the overall improvement of the labour market situation, working conditions - and hence the quality of work - have not improved to the extent expected; 
• lifelong-learning measures are still not on offer for all groups of workers; and 
• there remains a considerable degree of labour market discrimination suffered by older and younger workers, women and persons with few skills.

The report provides detailed information on the following areas of particular relevance to the world of work in the EU (data in graph and table form and explanatory texts):

• employment
• income distribution and social exclusion
• working time
• social protection and social infrastructure
• lifelong learning and the knowledge society
• working environment and occupational health and safety
• worker participation, information and consultation
• European social dialogue and implementation  

Although progress has been made in the development of European social indicators to follow up on the explicit targets set by the Lisbon strategy, the Benchmarking Working group states that the process of benchmarking social Europe is still impeded by out-of-date and sometimes non-comparable data on vital issues such as social security and health and safety

Sample chapter: Employment

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