Europe 2020 : The Employment, Skills and Innovation Agenda

Open Access

Abstract

This technical note highlights some of the work the World Bank has recently conducted in support of the growth agenda outlined in the Europe 2020 strategy. The World Bank is actively supporting the new member states, as well as accession and neighborhood countries, in achieving the Europe 2020 targets of smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. The engagement consists of policy and program lending in these areas as well as analytical work. This note focuses on highlighting some of the Bank's analytical Europe 2020 work pertaining to raising employment rates and skills levels as well as to spur innovation and technology absorption. The technical note is structured as follows: section one provides the macroeconomic background, and highlights how the economies of the European Union (EU)-10 countries were steadily catching up with those of the EU-15 countries, but then the catching-up was interrupted by the onset of the global financial and economic crisis. Section two focuses on low employment rates in EU-10 countries, particularly among older and less-educated workers, women, and minority groups, in particular Roma, and highlights some key issues in the organization of labor markets and labor market related institutions. Section three focuses more specifically on skills development across the life cycle, with a brief discussion on selected policy areas: (1) expansion of early childhood development programs to universal coverage; (2) adopting ambitious, comprehensive approaches to schooling to support higher levels of generic skills for all; and (3) strengthening access to and efficiency of tertiary education through higher education financing reform and data collection as a basis for system steering. Section four focuses on innovation and technology absorption, highlighting how more and more efficient research and development (R&D) spending will boost economic growth in EU10 countries.