On December 12, Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy, in collaboration with the Better Regulation Delivery Office and GIZ Ukraine, convened a pivotal conference titled “The Future of Ukraine’s Labour Market. Employment Strategy 2030.” The event, held under the shadow of war, underscored the critical role of labor market reforms in the country’s economic recovery. Representatives from Denmark, Germany, and the European Union lent their voices...
If Europe wants to grow without replaying the last inflation drama, it will need more hours, more matches, and fewer reasons for people to step out of the labour market entirely. There’s a comforting story about Europe right now. Unemployment has edged down again. The employment rate has inched higher. Across the bloc, real wages are starting to claw back lost ground. You can feel the relief from Brussels to Bratislava: the worst of the...
Greece is intensifying efforts to reverse its post-crisis brain drain, launching a global talent outreach campaign aimed at enticing highly skilled nationals back home. The initiative, spearheaded by Labour Minister Niki Kerameus, includes a series of international roadshows across European cities targeting Greek professionals who left during the country’s protracted economic downturn. More than 500,000 Greeks—many of them young and highly...
Sweden is preparing to overhaul its labour migration framework, with a planned relaxation of work permit rules for third-country nationals set to come into effect from May 2026. The move is part of the government’s effort to align national legislation with the revised EU Single Permit Directive and bolster the country’s competitiveness in attracting international talent. The proposal, currently under parliamentary review, would introduce a...
Poland’s labour market continues to show signs of robust growth, with average gross wages in the enterprise sector rising by 8.4 per cent year-on-year in May, according to new figures released by Statistics Poland. The average salary now stands at 7,793.18 zlotys (approximately €1,785), underscoring resilient consumer demand amid mounting inflationary pressures. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate dropped to 2.8 per cent—the lowest level in...
At the close of 2024, Europe's labour market reached levels unseen in decades. According to the latest OECD data, the employment rate within the European Union climbed to a record 70.9% in the fourth quarter—the highest since the organisation began tracking such data in 2005. Eight EU member states reported their highest-ever employment figures, underscoring the continent's robust labour market performance. The Netherlands led the EU pack with...
The algorithm will see you now. Across the globe, artificial intelligence is reshaping how companies find talent. Systems promise to sift through thousands of applications in minutes, identify promising candidates, and even predict future job performance, all while potentially reducing human bias and costs. But in the European Union, this technological march faces a formidable regulatory bastion: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)....
A series of sweeping moves is underway across the European Union. In an attempt to shed its post–Cold War reliance on US defence imports, Brussels is betting that a pan-European rearmament drive could not only bolster security but also rejuvenate stagnant industrial sectors. The approach is as audacious as it is untested. A Strategic Pivot with Uneven Impact For years, Europe has been content to let Washington shoulder most of the burden when...
The Irish government, long a beneficiary of its European Union membership, has cast a worried eye towards Brussels – not at policy debates, but at the personnel files. A "demographic cliff" looms, as a generation of senior Irish officials who joined after the 1973 accession approaches retirement. Simultaneously, the pipeline supplying new talent has slowed to a trickle, leaving Ireland significantly under-represented at crucial entry and...
