Employment: guidelines for member States' policies for the year 2002

The Commission considers favourably several of the comments made by the European Parliament on the basis of its proposal. The Commission has included in this amended proposal a number of changes reflecting Parliament's major concerns with the employment guidelines. Modifications are proposed to: - Horizontal objective F on the need to evaluate and report on budget allocations to policy measures. - Guideline 4 on the need to establish appropriate frameworks to enable adults to gain effective access to further vocational training; - Guideline 6 on ensuring that account is taken of regional balance in economic and social development in the context of facilitating the mobility of workers; - Guideline 8 on strengthening the fight against undeclared work; - Guideline 16 on the need to reform tax-benefit structures to prevent any negative impact on women's participation in the labour force and to remove obstacles to women setting up in business or becoming self-employed. - Guideline 17 on ensuring national targets are set to increase the employment rate of women and to achieve gender pay equality in the public and private sectors; - Guideline 18 on ensuring that national targets are set to increase the availability of care services for children and other dependants.�