PRESS RELEASE
Brussels, 7 September 2012
EU conference “Jobs for Europe”, 6-7 September, Brussels
Jobs for Europe or Europe for Jobs?
‘Older people should work for longer rather than spend their time on golf courses at the expense of the younger generations! No, they should leave their secured and well paid jobs to let the youth enter the labour market! Those old clichés are raised over and over again and blame the 50+ as the cause for the current crisis when the roots of the problem are elsewhere’ stressed Anne-Sophie Parent, Secretary-General of AGE Platform Europe, at the beginning of her presentation at the EU conference “Jobs for Europe”, on 6-7 September in Brussels. ‘Rather than look at what jobs can do for Europe, we should look at what Europe can do to create more quality jobs for all, including young and older workers and women’, added Mrs Parent.
The on-going pressure on social protection systems and wages, and the massive job destructions that many Members States are experiencing have a direct impact on citizens’ consumption and will kill the EU economy if citizens can longer afford to buy what we produce. Our objective should be to ensure that everyone has access to a decent income through paid work or pension.
To achieve that the labour market needs to adapt to today’s reality and should become more age and gender-friendly. The EU can help by:
- ensuring that Member states effectively implement measures to eradicate the discrimination that young and older workers as well as women face in the labour market;
- encouraging investment that create jobs in regions with high unemployment rather than force workers to immigrate;
- helping seniors to set up and invest in new companies that will create jobs for young workers;
- boosting private and public investments in sectors likely to generate age- and gender-friendly jobs, e.g. green and white jobs;
- investing in the creation of age-friendly environments (transport, public infrastructure, housing, services, etc) to support longer and more productive working lives and independent living in old age to reduce the demographic pressure on social protection systems.
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