Event - More and better jobs in home-care services, 12/09/2013, Brussels, Belgium

Results from Eurofound’s report More and better jobs in home-care services are presented for the first time at a high-level event on Thursday 12 September 2013, hosted by the Committee of the Regions in Brussels.

Population ageing has generated the need and demand for more and better jobs in long-term care. An accessible and high-quality system of health and social care provision is essential for European societies and economies. The health and social care sector is growing in nearly all Member States, providing opportunities for an ever-greater number of employees. This is a sector with increasing demands for quality and skills to support people with multiple chronic conditions. There are a number of barriers to job creation in this specific sector such as: shortages of interested recruits, budgetary constraints and demanding working conditions. In order to overcome these problems and to support the creation of a growing, strong workforce in the sector, the research looked at recruitment and worker retention measures, analysing the situation across 10 EU Member States.

This one-day conference, organised by Eurofound under the auspices of the Lithuanian Presidency, aims to assess the policy challenges for long-term care as well as personal household services, particularly in relation to job creation and the quality of jobs in this sector.

The programme, presentations and conference report are available for download.

At the launch of the new report, from left: Tom Bevers, Chair of the Employment Committee (EMCO); Raymond Maes, Member of Cabinet, Laszlo Andor, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion; Juan Menéndez-Valdés, Director, Eurofound; Erika Mezger, Deputy Director, Eurofound; Robert Anderson, Head of Unit, Living Conditions and Quality of Life, Eurofound; Arnoldas Abramavicius, Member of the Committee of the Regions.