The first European employment strategy (EES) dates back to 1997, when the EU Member States undertook to establish a set of common objectives and targets for employment policy.
It now constitutes part of the EU growth strategy and it is implemented through the European semester, an annual process promoting close policy coordination among EU Member States and EU Institutions. In particular, the implementation of the EES - supported by the work of the Employment committee - involves the following four steps of the European Semester:
The Joint employment report (JER) is based on (a) the assessment of the employment situation in Europe (b) the implementation of the Employment Guidelines and (c) an assessment of the Scoreboard of key employment and social indicators. It is published by Commission and adopted by the EU Council.