The economic climate in Europe is improving and in most countries, the number of people working is higher than it has been for many years. However, sustainable economic growth cannot be achieved without complementary measures in the social field which balance conflicting social pressures and marshal human resources within an efficient and socially fair framework. Such concerns span the domain of education and training, labour markets, equal opportunities, social inclusion, industrial relations and the social dialogue, justice and home affairs, social protection and the social economy. They are of concern as much to firms as to governments.

Worklessness is used to refer to all people of working age who are without work. Geographically, worklessness can be identified in pockets of areas affected by deprivation. However, the range of barriers to work across different populations is more difficult to define and understand the cause and effect of labour market engagement.

In addition to these difficulties, we understand the issues that regional and local organisations face when tackling worklessness and providing better opportunities to work. The key challenges are:

• Improving performance with less money. Changes in structural funds, such as the European Structural Fund (ESF), has led to diminishing available funds;
• Increasing percentage of local people taking local jobs;
• Creating sustainable employment;
• Achieving progression once in work;
• Reaching the hard to engage.

The ECORYS Group has a long tradition of employment research and consultancy and has played an important role in shaping, communicating and implementing policy developments to clients at European, national and local levels. Our employment research is conducted across the full policy cycle, from policy conception to communicating 'what works'. We appreciate the importance of partnership working and gaining public, private and voluntary sector involvement and as such are continually developing our tools to support these challenges.