IMPLEMENTATION LEVEL OF EUROPE 2020 STRATEGY TARGETS AS REGARDS LABOR MARKET IN EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES

The Europe 2020 Strategy is a reaction to the economic crisis effects from 20082009 and the attempt to avoid similar crisis in the future. The Europe 2020 Strategy was built on three development pillars: smart, sustainable and favorable to social inclusion. It was expected to lead to processes of broad changes reflected in various economic areas. The strategy particularly emphasized the need of common action undertaken by member countries to emerge successfully from the crisis (from 2008-2009) and the necessity to proceed with the reforms that will facilitate facing the challenges connected with globalization, ageing of societies and with the growing need of rational resources use. The level of implementation of individual targets, defined in Europe 2020 Strategy, in European Union countries is significantly diverse, which may lead to delay in realization of strategy targets. The aim of the present paper is the analysis of (reference) targets connected with labor market and their implementation in Poland and other EU countries as defined by the European Commission in Europe 2020 Strategy. Moreover, setting the trends in this area and forecasting the period of realization of targets specified for EU as a whole and for Poland individually is of author's interest as well. The research period is from 2004 to 2016 and target values are defined for 2020.