ABSTRACT
At its Summit in Essen on 9 and 10 December 1994, the European Union (EU)2 had two major challenges on its agenda. One reflected the dramatic changes in progress in central and eastern Europe since the end of 1989 and concerned EU enlargement. The other challenge confronting the EU was mass unemployment. Europe’s main economic problem displayed worrying characteristics: over eleven per cent of the Union’s workforce is, and increasingly looks like remaining, jobless. In comparative perspective, this figure is almost double America’s jobless total (5.7 per cent in January 1996) and three times Japan’s (3. 5 per cent). At present, more than 18.3 million people in the fifteen European Union countries are unemployed. In the course of 1995 more than 1.8 million people in the EU lost their jobs. Short-and medium-term projections foresee no significant change. While some of this unemployment is cyclical, there is good reason to believe that a large proportion of the population that is out of work in Europe is chronically unemployed. Yet unemployment figures tell only part of the story. Jobless rates tend to underestimate the true gravity of the situation. Many OECD countries are faced with substantial disguised or hidden unemployment, represented by discouraged workers and people involuntarily employed in part-time jobs. In 1992 these two categories, in which women predominate, represented more than 13 million people.
