Labour market outcomes have been improving against the background of a modest recovery. The unemployment rate in the EU appears unusually reactive to the weak recovery. Yet, it stood above pre-crisis levels, at around 9.5% in the EU and 11% in the euro area in May 2015. Labour market disparities have started to fall across the EU and the euro area.

The labour market in Europe has continued to improve during 2015 and 2016, with unemployment rates moving closer to pre-recession levels. In August 2016, it reached 10.1% in the euro area and 8.6% in the EU, respectively about 2.5 and 2 percentage points below the peak reached in 2013 but still about 3 and 1.5 percentage points above pre-crisis levels. Labour market disparities across the EU and the euro area continued to fall from very high levels.

Published every year, the report analyses the state of working Europe explaining with the aid of statistics and graphs the main trends in terms of Europe’s macro-economic situation, its labour market development, the situation of wages and collective bargaining, and worker participation. The focus of this year’s Benchmarking report is on the lessons learned – or not learned – from eight years of economic crisis and austerity policy. The findings point to policy failures and to the need to redefine alternatives in order to get Europe back on a sustainable growth path. The deterioration of the labour market and social situation in the EU, along with the appointment of a new Commission last autumn, have led to some renewed policy initiatives that seek to restore growth as a means of addressing the situation. The most notable of these initiatives is the Annual Growth Survey with its three pillars: the Investment Plan, fiscal responsibility and structural reforms.