European Union News - Social Affairs

Two studies undertaken for the European Commission on apprenticeships and traineeships in all EU Member States recommend that these schemes should be more responsive to labour market requirements. European enterprises currently offer company training positions for a total of about 9.4 million students. Apprenticeship-type students represent approximately 40.5% of total secondary education students in the 27 Member States.

The euro area unemployment rate was 11.1% and the EU was 10.3% in May 2012. In both cases, it represents a slight increase compared with April 2011, according to Eurostat. The lowest unemployment rate was once again registered in Austria (4.1%), and the highest in Spain (24.6%).

The Quarterly Review published by the European Commission shows that the employment and social situation in the EU remains subdued despite small improvements. It confirms that overall employment is stagnant and is slightly decreasing in the euro area. However, there are significant differences between Member States.

The European Commission announced that 261 projects were submitted for inclusion in the European Innovation Partnership for active and healthy ageing by groups of stakeholders spanning the public and private sector. In addition, 54 regions and municipalities offered themselves as 'reference sites', to exchange good practice and to share knowledge and experience on past successes in this domain.

The campaign with the slogan "Science: it's a girl thing" was launched by the Commission on 21 of June with the aim at getting more girls interested in science and encourage more women to choose research as a career. The three year campaign will seek to get teenage girls interested in studying science, technology, engineering and maths.

EU Ministers agreed in paving the way for the start of negotiations with the European Parliament with a view to the swift adoption for the draft directive on the review of accounting requirements for companies. This draft directive is one of the priority actions of the Single Market Act for growth creation to be adopted by the Council and the European Parliament in 2012.

The European Commission presented the EU Strategy towards the Eradication of Trafficking in Human Beings (2012-2016). The strategy includes 40 measures that include the establishment of national law enforcement units specialised in human trafficking and the creation of joint European investigation teams to prosecute cross-border trafficking cases.

The European Commission proposed a to provide Aragon (Spain) with €1.3 million from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) to help 320 redundant workers in the construction sector with their re-integration into the labour market. On the other hand, €1.6 million from the EGF will help workers in the region of Comunidad Valenciana.

According to the estimations from Eurostat, compared with the previous quarter, the number of persons employed decreased by 0.2% in the euro area and remained stable in the EU in the first quarter of 2012. In addition, compared with the same quarter of the previous year, employment fell by 0.5% in the euro area and by 0.1% in the EU in the first quarter of 2012.