A new Thematic Paper has just been released by the European Network of Public Employment Services (PES Network) outlining the innovative role that PES are playing providing preventative services and upskilling programmes for employees at risk of job losses.
The paper follows a Thematic Review Workshop held in Lithuania on 17-18 September 2024 dedicated to examining how PES are responding to the labour market challenges of the green, demographic and digital transitions.
These challenges, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have resulted in the PES practices and mandate evolving to offer innovative preventative services, marking a shift from traditional job matching towards career management. Such services cover those at risk of job losses and workers in career transitions whilst also ensuring close collaboration with employers to provide upskilling services and facilitate job-to-job transitions.
The paper focuses on three key themes: career counselling to support job-to-job transitions, upskilling of employees to prevent job losses and engaging with and providing broader services for employers.
Key findings and recommendations
The Thematic Paper outlines key findings and learnings from the Thematic Review Workshop:
- Career counselling for employees is a key building block for preventative services. Services are provided flexibly in different locations, channels, timings. Customised communication is key to ensure buy-in from employees.
- Employer services are evolving with employer counsellors playing an active role. PES are providing tailor-made services for employers alongside HR and skills counselling. PES can also demonstrate the business case to employers for investing in skills.
- PES are financing upskilling activities. Training can include transversal and specialist skills, and prepares employees for current and future needs. Financial support for employers is important to help prevent job losses.
- PES are taking an active role in facilitating job-to-job transitions. Skills intelligence and forecasting can be used to target services alongside low-threshold services, with some form of profiling.
- Analysing skills trends and conducting surveys of employers’ requirements can help PES better anticipate future priorities for employers and employees.
- PES are developing business cases to demonstrate the added value of investing in skills to prevent unemployment.
Read the paper
Read the full paper here to find out more about innovative practices and case-studies in PES.
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