Increasing participation in learning The role of public employment
services within the New Skills And
Jobs Agenda
8 March 2011
Miranda McIntosh
Policy Co-ordinator
DG EMPL Unit C/2 – New Skills for New Jobs, Adaptation to
Change, CSR and EGF
Some of the challenges
• 23 million Europeans still jobless
– The unemployment rate looks to remain the
same well into 2011
– Average duration of unemployment is rising
– Specific groups are effected (youth, migrants,
workers on temporary contracts)
• Due to demographic change our workforce
is about to shrink
Some of the challenges
• We are faced with a persistent skills gap:
– Over 80 million adults hampered by low levels
of basic skills
– Jobs becoming more knowledge- and skillsintensive: by 2020 35% of all jobs will require
high-level qualifications
• Member States are faced with severe
budget constraints – tough choices need to
be made
EUROPE 2020 Architecture
3 Priorities
Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive growth
5 Targets
• 75 % employment rate
• 3% GDP investment in R&D
• ‘20/20/20’ climate/energy targets
• < 10% ESL; 40% tertiary degree
• 20 million less people
at risk of poverty
7 Flagships
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Innovation Union
Youth on the move
A digital agenda for Europe
Resource efficient Europe
An industrial policy for the globalisation
An agenda for new skills and jobs
European platform against poverty
New Skills and Jobs Agenda:
4 key areas of focus
• Better functioning of EU labour markets
• Right skills for right jobs
• Improving the quality of work and working conditions
• Creating jobs
Skills at the heart of the EUROPE 2020
Strategy
• Commission Communication:
New Skills for New Jobs:
anticipating and matching labour
market and skills needs
December 2008
• Expert group report – New Skills
for New Jobs Action Now!
February 2010
• Council Conclusions March 2009
and June 2010
• Europe 2020 strategy – New
Skills And Jobs Agenda March
2010
•
= PES are a central player in the
strategy
Role of Public Employment Services (PES)
• A pivotal role in job matching by delivering
employment services to jobseekers and
employers
• A role that is continuously adapting to rapidly
changing labour markets
• Dual role: to cater for those who have been out of
the labour market the longest whilst keeping the
newly unemployed as close as possible to the
labour market
Key figures for Labour Market Policies
• In 2008 1.6% of GDP was spent on LMP
– 60% on supports (financial assistance)
– 28% on measures (training/job take-up)
– 12% on services (job search)
• Over the period 2008-10, many Member States
stepped up their expenditure on labour market
interventions
• In some countries, employment services
raised their staffing levels by 10% or more to
cope with rising numbers of unemployed
Key activities of the PES
• Employment guidance and job search or
targeted assistance for particular groups
• Facilitators of targeted training and work
experience
• Providers of labour market information
• Some PES offer career guidance for young or
adults
• For most PES cooperation with other
guidance and training providers is crucial
Areas of development
• Stronger focus on delivery of lifelong learning
• Increase the capacity for analysis and utilisation
of information on skills needs
– Innovate in types of LM information
• Further targeted support
– Skills up-grading of older workers affected by
restructuring
– Re-skilling of parents returning to work
– Blue collar-workers to ‘green’ collar jobs
• Review of working methods
– closer partnership-based approaches, staff training
Good practice examples
• PES Germany developed "Beratungskonzept" - concept for
guidance and counselling and has also started a training
programme for all employment advisers. More than 14.000
employment advisors will have a basic training to improve
face-to-face services for jobseekers.
• PES Flanders, Belgium “Lifelong guidance for jobseekers’
project” – working with employed people focussing on their
career and long-term perspective with an aim to make
pathway guidance evolve more towards career-orientated
guidance
Action at EU level
• HoPES NSNJ working group
• “PES to PES” - Peer learning
• PARES – PARtnership between Employment
Services
• Lifelong learning package – revisiting the
principles to boost supply and take-up
• European Skills, Competences and Occupations
classification (ESCO) – developing a common
language
• European Social Fund
Further information:
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=958