Pacts for Employment and Competitiveness: concepts and issues

The persistent high levels of unemployment and the EU policy initiatives have fuelled a broad public debate on the concept of pacts for employment and competitiveness (PECs) in most Member States and at EU level. PECs try to combine three major elements - competitiveness, employment and partnership. They are an attempt to influence the level and structure of employment by a mix of market regulation, collective bargaining on different levels, public policy intervention on tax, social security contributions, training, education and innovation. This concept paper analyses the motives of the main protagonists for supporting negotiations on PECs in Europe. It is the first publication of the investigation into PECs and represents a position paper which defines the focus of the research.
Catalogue no: SX-26-99-417-EN-C