Stakeholders conference: How to prevent unemployment in a changing world of work?

This is why the PES Network has invited various labour market stakeholders for a conference on prevention of unemployment in Brussels on the 15th October.

Commissioner Thyssen opened this stakeholder conference via video message, highlighting the crucial role the PES and its partners have for European labour markets.

To pro-actively work on how to avoid tomorrow´s challenges is key.

During the interactive meeting of the PES Network and their labour market partners, ideas were developed, responding on

• How to effectively up- or reskill citizens to prevent unemployment and keep up their employability ?
• How to reach out to all citizens to guide them throughout their career?
• How to make best use of ICT in an efficient and customer-friendly way ?
• How to best prepare to ensure future skills ?
• And, last but not least, how to best address and involve employers and education institutions ?

In workshops stakeholders from the education and training sector, representatives from the European Social Partners, research institutions, NGOs and private partners, and of course the PES Network Members have been critically discussing on the way ahead.

Some exciting practices and ideas to follow up on are:

• The Estonian work and study programme, targeted at employees at risk of unemployment. Employees can benefit from study allowances or training vouchers. Employers can receive grants for upskilling employees.
• The Finnish PES, having strengthened the cooperation with employers in case of dismissals. The objective of this early intervention approach is to provide employment services already during the notice period.

Clear commitment exists when it comes to co-creating and involving partners for designing and implementing labour market policies aiming at better serving European citizens.

Johannes Kopf, Chair of the PES Network, underlines the importance of preventive approaches:

Preventing people from becoming unemployed is one of our key challenges in the near future. We the PES need to be ready to support employees and employers best in order to secure employment.

PS. More pictures from the PES conference