15. Takes note of the headline target on employment rate for men and women; regrets that the quality of employment is not taken into account in this objective; reiterates that high quality employment should be a key priority of a 2020 strategy and that a stronger focus on well-functioning labour markets – both national and European – and on social conditions is vital in order to improve employment performance; calls, therefore, for a new legislative agenda to strengthen workers’ rights and working conditions, including a revision of the posting of workers directive and new or revised directives on minimum income schemes, working time, abusive individual dismissals, information and consultation, union recognition, cross-border c ...[+++]ollective agreements, equal treatment of atypical workers, equal pay, and labour inspections; furthermore believes that the new strategy must give much more emphasis on job quality and decent work, including the fight against precarious and undeclared work and the creation of conditions for reconciliation of work and private life; as well as ensuring that people who are currently excluded from the labour market can gain access; calls on the Commission to change its practice of considering this area only as being subject to Commission communications, and to propose flagship legislative initiatives to protect workers’ rights as a matter of urgency;

2. Stresses that, in order to have highly qualified and skilled women workers on the labour market, it is necessary to empower women to enter, re-enter and advance in the labour market, particularly the vulnerable ones who face structural unemployment and difficulties with returning to work, either due to jobs lost because of the recent financial crisis, or after maternity or parental leave, or for other reasons, with retraining opportunities and access to vocational training, regardless of the type of work contract, with the aim of i ...[+++]mproving their qualifications; stresses, furthermore, that it is necessary to provide women with access and incentives to active participation in life-long learning at every stage of their careers, and to promote technical and engineering studies among girls with a view to flexible adaptation of education and training to the needs of the labour market, particularly the need for highly skilled workers;

demands that the Employment Guidelines should address: active and preventive measures for the unemployed and inactive; making work pay; increasing labour supply and participation; entrepreneurship, change and adaptability; the development of human capital and life-long learning; gender equality; integration and discrimination in the labour market; and regional employment disparities; while taking into account that transforming undeclared work into regular employment is also a key issue of the Employment Strategy which should be addressed in parallel with the effect of immigration on labour markets.

labour market reform, where efforts must be continued on tax measures to increase labour market participation, benefit systems that make work pay, wage formation systems, improvements in labour market efficiency, active ageing, removing barriers to female labour force participation and labour regulation;

The Operational Programme comprises measures to meet the following objectives : a) under Employment-NOW, to contribute to the promotion of equal opportunities between men and women by the implementation on a transnational basis of pilot projects of an innovatory nature; the national level objectives are to address horizontal and vertical segregation in the labour market, to tackle the specific needs of people returning to the labour market after a period of discharging domestic responsibilities, and to develop and spread good practice; b) under Employment-HORIZON, to improve the labour market entry opportunities for disabled people and ...[+++] certain other disadvantaged groups through the creation and development, on a transnational basis, of pilot projects of an innovatory nature; c) under Employment-YOUTHSTART, to improve the labour market entry opportunities for young people under 20 years of age through the creation and development on a transnational basis of pilot projects of an innovatory nature.

possible Community measures (for example minimum standards, accelerated admission procedures when there is a shortage of labour in a particular sector, improving the EURES system, etc.) for access by third country nationals to domestic labour markets, also taking into account the need for flexibility in view of the diversity of national situations; the possibility of adopting a sectoral approach to the admission of third country nationals to domestic labour markets with the aim of promoting access by certain categories of migrants according to needs; the need for better coordination of procedures relating to immigration and access to t ...[+++]he labour market on the one hand with measures for the social integration of third country nationals in the host country on the other.