Urgent problems of employment in the newly integrated EU member countries: lessons for Ukraine

The article analyzes the urgent problems in the sphere of employment of the new EU Member Countries, which require solution in the context of Europe-2020 Strategy, and affect the indicators of their socio-economic development. The author characterizes the main problems in the sphere of employment in the newly integrated EU Member countries related to the weak integration of the labor markets in the "old" and "new" Member Countries, high general unemployment level and very high youth unemployment level, high employment in the informal sector, labor force ageing, Intensive labor migration etc. Based on the analysis of the corresponding European experience, the article outlines the challenges to be taken into account in the course of the development of Ukraine's national long- and medium-term employment policy and defines the need of institutional expansion of the national labor market, which is the decisive condition of its convergence with the EU single labor market.