by Tania Abbiate & Eca Fernandez

Recommendation on Social Protection Floors: Basic Principles for Innovative Solutions assesses the catalogue of principles included in the ILO Recommendation on Social Protection Floors from a legal perspective. Despite the international community’s recognition of social protection as a human right, the vast majority of the world’s population still has no access to social protection. In a major effort to address this situation, the International Labour Conference unanimously adopted the Social Protection Floors Recommendation 202 of 2012.

The activity rate in the EU has continued its steady increase since 2008, in particular for older people, though not yet for younger people, as highlighted by this edition of the Employment and Social Situation Quarterly Review. Employment rate has returned to its pre-crisis level but with a much wider gap between countries, from 55% in Greece to 80% in Estonia, Germany and Sweden. The publication also stresses that permanent and full-time jobs continue to increase, though at a slower pace than in 2014.

EU Employment and Social Situation Quarterly Review Winter Edition As in previous editions all graphs and related data are downloadable in excel format by clicking on the links provided. A link to a country-specific statistical annex is also provided at the end of the report. Here are some highlights:

The 2015 edition of the ESDE review looks at the following topics: self-employment and entrepreneurship, labour legislation, long-term unemployment, mobility and migration, social dialogue, skills, and social protection systems with a particular focus on the labour market participation of older workers and women.