New ways of jointly addressing labour and skills shortages

The European PES Network published on November 4th a new paper on how PES and their partners can work to build labour market resilience and meet the evolving needs of employers and job seekers: “Jointly addressing labour and skills shortages, preparing for Europe’s Future Labour Market”.

This paper provides concrete examples that were highlighted during the 2022 PES Network Stakeholder Conference.

The conference centred on three key strategic priorities:

  • Enhancing the attractiveness of certain regions, sectors and occupations
  • Assisting people from groups suffering labour market discrimination
  • Enhancing the effectiveness of labour market interventions

The urgency of labour and skills shortages is highlighted in the study along with a “decade-long increase” in the job vacancy rate. Important labour market disruptions from both short-term (like COVID-19) and long-term issues are among the main reasons (e.g., twin digital and green transitions).

The research also emphasizes the need for multifaceted interventions by the network of labour market actors, including basic employability training, upskilling, retraining, and retention of workers, enhanced recruiting, but also major reallocation of labour.

Read the full paper here.

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