Employment and Competitiveness: The Key Role of Education 
Daniel Gros, Centre for European Policy Studies, February 2006, 8p.

A new policy brief, released by CEPS, looks at the reasons behind the failure of the EU in achieving its goal of becoming the "most competitive economy by 2010". In particular it highlights an aspect that is often forgotten: the link between skills and employment, a central element of the Lisbon goal. It shows that the key problem of Europe in terms of employment is not so much the structure of its labour markets, but the insufficient skill levels of its population. The paper finds that investing more in improving the skills of the EU’s population would have, inter alia, a direct impact on the employment rate.