ERM report 2008 : more and better jobs : patterns of employment expansion in Europe

A key element of European policy is the emphasis on boosting employment and maximising its quality - creating 'more and better jobs' - with a view to shaping a competitive, knowledge-based economy. Over the period 1995- 2006, considerable growth in employment took place in most European countries. This report seeks to determine if those jobs created were also of better quality. It does this by analysing the level of employment growth across the wage spectrum in each Member State; it also breaks down the growth in employment at different wage levels by sector, occupation, type of contract, and gender and in doing so explores the mechanisms underlying the observed patterns. The report also looks at announcements of restructuring in 2007 across the EU and Norway in 2007, and gauges the extent of consequent job creation and job loss, with a number of in-depth studies of the year's key restructuring events from national, sectoral and company perspectives.