More people and regions will benefit from the EU Youth Employment Initiative thanks to amendments voted by the Employment and Social Affairs Committee on Tuesday. This initiative is to give effect to the "youth guarantee", whereby any young person in the EU who has been unemployed for more than four months is to be offered a job, training or an apprenticeship.

A draft single set of rules to govern how EU member states collect and compile EU population data was approved by Parliament on Thursday. Consistent EU-wide data are needed inter alia to calculate qualified majority voting rights in the Council of Ministers and national entitlements to some EU funding. The rules will now be fine-tuned in informal talks with the Council.

A draft single set of rules to govern how EU member states collect and compile EU population data was approved by Parliament on Thursday. Consistent EU-wide data are needed inter alia to calculate qualified majority voting rights in the Council of Ministers and national entitlements to some EU funding. The rules will now be fine-tuned in informal talks with the Council.

Safeguarding public pensions to ensure decent living standards for all in old age must remain a priority, MEPs stress in a resolution adopted on Thursday. They also call for the development of supplementary pension schemes and longer working lives to ensure the sustainability of pensions threatened by demographic ageing and strained public finances.

Much more must be done this year to cut unemployment, thoroughly democratise EU economic governance and ensure that structural reforms foster growth, says Parliament's opinion, voted Thursday, on the European Commission’s Annual Growth Survey of the EU. This survey kicks off this year’s European Semester process of economic policy coordination among EU member states.

The European Semester was the focus of work for the committees on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Budgets and Employment on Tuesday, as MEPs met their national counterparts to discuss economic coordination work going on at EU level and how parliaments can better hold the various decision makers to account.

"Youth guarantee" schemes to ensure that no young person in the EU goes without a job, education or training for more than four months won strong support in Parliament on Wednesday. MEPs voted a resolution calling on EU employment ministers to agree in February 2013 to a Council recommendation that all member states introduce these schemes.

Plans for "youth guarantee" schemes to ensure that no young person in the EU is without a job for more than four months won strong support in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee on Tuesday. MEPs voted a resolution calling on EU employment ministers to agree in February 2013 to a Council recommendation that all member states introduce these schemes.

New rules to improve the safty of workers most exposed to electromagnetic fields with protective measures and new maximum exposure limits were approved by a large majority in the social affairs and employment committee on Thursday. Exemptions for the medical imaging sector and for military applications will be allowed, to take account of their specific needs, say MEPs.

The issue of whether subcontractors using workers posted abroad should be made liable for protecting their rights was the focus of a heated first debate in the Employment Committee on Wednesday afternoon.