The 15th edition of the European Commission’s Employment in Europe report, published in early October 2003, presents a panorama of recent developments in European labour markets. This is the report integrate accesscion countries into the analysis. The report highlights the EU’s commitment to increase the number of older people in work to 50 %(the Stockholm target) and to raise the age at which people retire by 5 years (the Barcelona target). Statistics in 2001 show that the average retirement age is 59.9 years and in 2002 only 30 % of older people were in work in the accession countries compared to 40 % in the EU. Although recent progress has been made in some Member States towards meeting these targets, the report highlights the importance of work-health issues for older workers. In low-skilled jobs greater attention is needed for health and safety issues because of muscular-skeletal disorders. Higher skilled workers face the challenges of stress and the associated health impact.
For more details read the Summary document or download the full report Employment in Europe.
