News

Tuesday, October 7, Vilnius - On Wednesday, 8 October, President Dalia Grybauskaitė will travel to Milan to attend a high level EU conference on unemployment issues. The conference is organized by Italy which holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union for this half of the year.

At the conference, the President will present Lithuania's results in fighting unemployment and will review measures needed to boost employment and ensure more active entry of young people into the labor market. Lithuania is among the leaders in Europe in terms of fighting youth unemployment. Youth unemployment has shrunk by even 16% since 2010.

The Milan conference is the third high level event where EU leaders and heads of state and government of EU member states, social security ministers and social partners - representatives of employers and employees - will discuss measures to reduce unemployment. The first and second conferences were held last year in Berlin and Paris respectively.

Taking part in the conference will also be European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, European Parliament President Martin Schulz, President François Hollande of France, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Ministers of Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, and Finland, as well as other top ranking representatives from EU member states.

At present, as many as 24 million people in the European Union are jobless.