The Impact of Economic Growth Process on Employment in European Union Countries

The purpose of the present study is to empirically investigate the effect of economic growth on employment in EU countries, between 2000 and 2010. The main findings of the paper suggest the existence of a low employment elasticity of economic growth in EU, but this has significant differences from one country to another. This fact highlights that one of the main problems of the European countries (especially those in the Eastern and Central EU) is their small capacity to generate employment under the conditions of the existence of an economic growth process. Taking into consideration that only the process of economic growth, which generates new jobs, is the one that assures the conditions for economic and human development it is highly important to act in order to increase the employment intensity of economic growth