Policy instruments

Identifying changes in the needs for qualifications/new skills. To design training measures for the unemployed and to guide (further) training in companies and in specific occupations, based on input working groups (PES and companies representatives). Working groups are created for specific sectors, made up of sectoral clusters of business representatives (e.g. in construction and building, business administration, chemicals and plastics, electrical engineering/electronics/ telecommunications, energy and environmental engineering, commerce, machinery/motor vehicles/metal, tourism, and health). These groups then formulate a list of current and future sector-specific requirements for employees and jobseekers in their sectors. The outcomes are used by AMS for the design of training measures for the unemployed and are also meant to guide (further) training in companies and in specific occupations.

Mismatched unemployed people face greater difficulties in finding employment than other unemployed workers. The instrument, therefore, focuses on this sub-group of the unemployed workers to promote their labour market integration. The aim is to help the unemployed to find a job and the companies to reduce their skill shortages.

Preparation of labour market related information to make it accessible and understandable for everyone. It helps all interested parties (PES employees, journalists, politicians, company representatives, persons who want to choose their career) to process information on the local, regional and national labour market.

The objective of this policy instrument is to attract those key and skilled workers from abroad who are urgently needed on the labour market, but cannot be recruited from the domestic labour supply (with due attention to the future development of the Austrian labour market and economy). It opens the labour market and regulates the opportunity for foreigners to receive employment permits in Austria.

Provide unemployed individuals (sometimes specific target groups) with the necessary skills and competences to carry out work within a specific enterprise. The rationale behind the IBO measure is that by bringing a job seeker and enterprise together, the VDAB can help develop a training and education plan that allows the job seeker to attain the skills required by the enterprise in question. The job seeker can learn while working at the enterprise and become acquainted with the organisation, prove themselves, and learn the necessary skills. A feature of the measure is that the job seeker receives employment at the enterprise once the training is complete. The rationale is that such specific matching between individual enterprises and job seekers, together with the feature that the job seeker becomes employed, promotes employment through a tailored matching in skills and competences to an enterprise’s needs.
The goal is to offer 13,500 training programmes in 2012 (11,979 reached), 15,500 in 2013 and 17,000 in 2014.

The overarching objective of the initiative was to enhance labour market adaptability and effectiveness, as well as to strike a greater balance of labour market demand and supply by developing a system for workforce competence assessment by sectors and regions. The rationale of the Competence Assessment System can be defined, as follows: Forecasting the demand for labour force with specific qualification levels in specific sectors and regions. The policy goal, defined in section 2 were achieved through:
- Analysing and defining workforce competence requirements by considering EU, national and sector requirements and standards;
- Establishment of a Bulgarian Competence Assessment Network by sectors and regions and improvement of the coordination and information exchange of workforce competence assessment among national, branch and regional structures of the employers and trade unions and the responsible government institutions;
- Gaining national recognition and fostering prerequisites for the integration of the workforce competence assessment system in the future e-government so as to enhance adaptability and effectiveness, and to achieve a balance of the labour market demand and supply.

The programme attempts to address the problem of relatively high personnel turnover and job vacancies in the three targeted sectors, which is caused by the inconstant intensity of activity of companies in these sectors, resulting in skills mismatch. The policy goal is to: increase skills matching; and provide better and more sustainable job placements, leading to higher and better-quality employment. A full subsidy (100%) is given to employers of three sectors with inconstant activity intensity (Manufacturing, Construction, Accommodation and food service activities) to train unemployed and inactive persons, and re-train employed persons in skills that match to their business needs, which will be done in less busy work periods; and to provide scholarships for trainees (unemployed and inactive people).

The goal of the instrument is the inclusion of unemployed people in programs of involvement in socially beneficial jobs. Public work is an instrument in the active politics of labour market in the area of direct creation of new workplaces. Socially beneficial work that is implemented in limited time period provides financing and co-financing of employment of unemployed people from target groups. It is especially beneficial for activation and increase of employment and participation of people in particularly unfavourable positions in the labour market, especially older people. The program of public work is initiated by local community, civil society organizations and other subjects. Public work has to be non-profit and non-competitive to the existing economy in that area. A preference is given to projects in the area of social care, education, protection and preservation of environment, maintenance and communal work.

The goal of the measure is preserving workplaces at employers that had temporary reduction of business activities and/or losses in business transactions, and gaining necessary knowledges and skills by workers that need to be prepared for the market considering potential loss of workplace and difficulties in business activity of the employer.
Compensation for the part of the expense of the salary for persons that work part-time at employers that have reduced amount of work. Employers can shorten working hours by 40%, due to reduced amount of work or the age of workers who can't fulfil demands of the workplace, in order to avoid dismissal. Support can also be provided for education or training of workers employed at employers that are experiencing difficulties, so that they can be employed in case they lose their jobs.

To enhance the employability of unemployed persons and create necessary qualified workforce, in order to diminish skills mismatches in the local labour market. Review and evaluate the existing programmes for the long-term unemployed and people at risk of becoming long-term unemployed and, based on the results of the evaluation, develop an effective policy strategy in this area. Provide adequate training for the unemployed and others at risk of becoming unemployed. ‘Adequate’ refers to inclusion of, for example, long-term unemployed people in training programmes tailored to meet labour market needs.

Public policy makers as well as social partners (associations of private employers) in the Czech Republic have been facing the problem of skill mismatch between the supply of skills of graduates from formal education and the demand for new/specialised skills continually generated in the labour market. It was decided to set up a platform for systematic cooperation between the two sides. Sector Councils are employer-led and publicly partly co-funded, and supervise expert groups, whose task is to monitor skill shortages and consult corresponding policy measures (Vocational Qualifications, National System of Professions etc). The activities of Sector Councils help to narrow the gap between requirements of employers (in terms of qualifications and competencies of employees) and the supply of workforce (both current and future), through identification of future needs and recommendations for improvement.

The policy instrument comprehensively addresses the issue of better matching the needs of the labour market with the provided education and training. The policy goal is to improve and tighten the linkages between the world of learning and the quantitative and qualitative needs and expectations of the labour market. The rationale for the intervention is the creation and implementation of a systematic process to engage all relevant stakeholders, so that they can provide input into skills anticipation and give recommendations to upgrade competency standards, provide relevant training and courses, also retraining possibilities. The general aim of OSKA is to teach and learn about the right skills relevant in the society. The OSKA system creates a cooperation platform, which enables the exchange of information between employers and training providers and educational institutions to comprehensively analyse the growth potential of different economic sectors and their needs, and to facilitate the planning of education provision at different levels of education and by types of school, as well as in the fields of retraining and in-service training.

Informing people in the labour market on career choice opportunities. It helps all interested parties (PES employees, journalists, politicians, company representatives, people who want to choose their career) to process information on the local, regional, and national labour market.

Labour force supply in Eastern Germany will shrink earlier and stronger than in the Western Länder due to the massive decrease in fertility after the reunification and the persistent migration of young and well-qualified people from Eastern Länder to Western Länder. The goal of the project is to support the competitiveness of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and the economic growth in Eastern Germany. With this initiative, the Ministry of the Interior promotes and funds regional approaches of securing a skilled workforce. These approaches are capable of exploiting the employment potential as far as possible. The core activity - besides events and publications - is to fund and support a number of projects introduced by companies and company networks. The projects are identified via a contest. Therefore, by supporting the interplay of various regional actors, the focus lies in testing measures of securing a skilled workforce in promising sectors in terms of increasing demand for skilled personnel.

The goal is to enable different stakeholders (employers, employees, public stakeholders) to react to future skill mismatch. The instrument provides information on which occupational groups are already affected by skill shortages and where bottlenecks are likely to occur. The results are broken down by province. Together with the Arbeitsmarktmonitor (Labour Market Monitor), it features various functions, e.g. regionalised data on industries and occupations, visualisations of regional structural data, an overview of labour market relevant networks throughout Germany, success stories and contacts with experts in various labour market issues.

The goal of the policy is to ensure relevant and comprehensive information about labour market and education and training possibilities in Lithuania is provided. It is an open online information portal, providing information on qualifications, VET and HE study programmes, as well as about the providers of these programmes to the different target groups. The target group includes pupils and young people seeking to obtain the information about occupations and qualifications, students, employers, education and training providers.

The project aimed to address challenges in reaching the 2020 energy policy targets through the development of a roadmap to upgrade relevant skills for the building industry in Malta. The implementation of the Build Up Skills Malta project has helped to identify the national status quo when it comes to the construction industry, in order to upgrade the training and certification of the workforce in the same sector.

The goal of this policy instrument is to reach people who are active in the Maltese labour market and find it difficult to pursue courses to enhance their skills, as a part-time option. Through Investing in Skills, these people are able to train and better their knowledge in their place of work, at a minimal to no cost for the employer. The instrument will be helping both companies and workers alike. Companies will benefit through increased productivity of their workers, while these in turn would be more adaptable to the skills required in the Maltese labour market.

Several goals where defined, including conducting research in ten sector groups, where a report generated for each sector will seek to identify skills, competences and qualifications that will be used as the basics to design tailormade courses for each industrial sector. There was an aim to re-skill 20% of participants to enable them to take up new tasks in the same or different industry sector and to up-skill 80% of participants to enable them to take up new tasks or perform better the same tasks within the relevant industry. There was also the goal to identify and address emerging trends developing in the labour market by providing approximately 3,600 hours of training across 10 sectors. This project aimed to identify the specific skills needs and current gaps in 10 different sectors. After this, the instrument also allowed people to apply for courses related to these sectors, which will ultimately give them the adaptability to move around in the Maltese labour market and in turn close the skills mismatch that exists in the market.

The policy instrument aims to solve the issue of graduates from tertiary level education (WO and HBO degrees in the Netherlands) not being able to find work due to lack of work experience. Often employers do not have the financial capacity or desire to take on an employee with no practical work experience. The instrument aims to enable graduates to acquire work experience through subsidized internships at enterprises, thus making them more attractive in the labour market. Without practical working experience, labour market information shows that graduates leaving tertiary education do not have the relevant skills and practical work experience that enterprises are looking for. Therefore, hiring a fresh graduate represents a risk for enterprises, as they must invest time and money to train a graduate to work in their enterprise. The rationale of the instrument is that by subsiding the training of graduates, it is more attractive for enterprises to hire them. Moreover, graduates gain work experience, making them more attractive on the labour market as a whole. Furthermore, having trained at an enterprise, a graduate has higher chances of being hired there. Overall, the main purpose is to help graduates find work more easily.

The measure aims ultimately to help better prepare students from various vocational educational levels and backgrounds for the labour market. Enterprises and employers in turn gain better educated employees. The subsidy allows enterprises and employers to offer work-based learning places within their organisation to better train students. The rationale is that there are groups of students in vocational education programmes and research students that require practical work experience to complete their educational programmes or to gain practical working experience. The measure seeks to ensure that enough good quality work-based positions are available by encouraging and supporting enterprises and employers to set up such work-based training positions. In this way, students are ensured good positions where they learn the skills they need for their immediate education and their future jobs as well.

To gain an extended knowledge, up-to-date information and labour market forecast, and to monitor the labour market situation and trends of the regional labour market. Delivery, publication and dissemination of studies and analyses of the situation in the regional and local labour market (including those part of regional observatories of the labour market), inter alia, in the scope of: (i) anticipated situation in the labour market of the selected professions, sectors/branches; (ii) anticipated expectations of employers in regards to the desired qualifications and training services; (iii) commercial migrations within the region.

Projects analysing how the structure of competences is changing in the labour market. This extensive research project seeks the answers to the key questions about the future asked by schoolchildren, students, employees, employers, and public institutions responsible for shaping policies related to human capital at both national and regional levels: What subjects of studies to select to have desirable knowledge and skills after graduation? What competences to hone to build the best professional career, one that will be in demand in the face of dynamic economic changes? How to plan the development of the team, so that the firm gains a lasting competitive edge founded on the team’s qualifications? Finally, what changes to introduce at the state level to support the building of an innovative economy based on human capital?

Identification of future skills shortages and needs/demands, labour market trends, which is useful for the design and assessment of active labour market policies. This instrument uses a more sophisticated methodology (dynamic general equilibrium) and implies a macro-economic forecasting tool to indicate all macro-economic aggregates in an autonomous process. It was recently designed by INCSMPS and Fondazione G. Brodolini Italy in an ESF-financed project. Two models of the project has been merged to enable the National Labour Research Institute to anticipate future skills needs, so as to enable decision-makers to use it for tailoring and targeting LM interventions.

The policy focuses on matching the supply of higher educated graduates with the demand of the employers, the adaptation of curricula and strengthen the link between higher education supply and the changing demands of the real economy. The instrument has been designed to assist the decision making at national level and thus reduce the gap between the supply of higher educated graduates and the demand coming from the labour market. It has been used to forecast trends by occupation and thus inform the national decision making process, as well as at the university level, with respect to the trends of the labour market and help adjust the structure of the university studies, adjust curricula and education plans and ultimately assist in creating a better match between education and the needs of the enterprises.

Identification of future skills shortages and needs/demands. This project focused on the identification of the potential demand for VET, based on quantitative approach, having been inspired by the Pan-European model to forecast the supply and demand for skills, referring to levels of occupations and terms of development of regions and their relation to VET demand.

The aim is to respond to a growing need of updated information from employers, social partners and other stakeholders of the labour market, in order to improve access to labour market information, to deal with mismatches, as well as to enhance the capabilities of the National Agency for Employment to provide and elaborate labour market analyses and forecasts.

The policy instrument aims to reduce disparities between qualifications and labour market needs by increasing the qualifications of the personnel employed in the industry, in order to contribute to the competitiveness of employees, enterprises and the Slovenian economy in general. The aim of the competence centres is to improve the competences, productivity, creativity and innovativeness of employees and to strengthen the competitiveness of the Slovenian economy. The instrument supports the following activities:
- establishment and operation of the competence centre project office.
- development of an HR development function (development/upgrading of the competence model, defining competence profiles for selected jobs, identifying competencies deficiencies and competencies of the future, development of new training programs and models/systems for systematic internal knowledge transfer).
- development of employees´ qualifications through the implementation of training.
- networking with partners in the field of human resources development.
- informing professionals and the rest of the public.

eVŠ was developed for the purposes of:
- determining students’ eligibility to study and other rights chargeable to public funds.
- HE policy planning and the monitoring of the HE system.
- the monitoring of a network of HE institutions and study programmes.
- the monitoring of the employability of higher education graduates, which will enable appropriate professional and career counselling and will provide the basis for forecasting the needs for higher education staff in the labour market.
- public information.
- for research, analytical and statistical purposes, i.e. for the implementation of statistical, social and economic and other research activities in the area of HE. eVŠ addresses the fundamental need for the monitoring of students' employability, related to the question of transition from education system to labour market, and the problem of poor competencies - work match. eVŠ also addresses the general public policy trend of increased transparency, accountability and evidence-based decision-making, the growing international competitiveness of HEIs and the ever-increasing need for collecting and processing data.

The problems addressed are the lack of skills for green jobs and environmental problems. The policy goal is to provide skills for green jobs to promote the greening of the economy and employability of workers. The final policy goal is to promote employment and competitiveness of the private sector through environmental transformation and greening. Thus, the instrument has three linked goals (environmental, economic and social). The programme was initially (2007-2013) focused on employed workers, but on the new ESF period (2014-2020) focuses on unemployed workers as well. In addition, the programme includes support to green entrepreneurs.

The goal is to respond to the industry demand for computer programmers with skills in the SAP programming language. The instrument offered training courses in SAP technology for 200 unemployed people, through 8 courses for 25 people each. The duration of each course was 220 hours. The courses were organized in 5 cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Sevilla and Bilbao. Courses provided an international certification, which improved the employability of participants.

To improve the national co-ordination of skills supply and to strengthen local and regional cooperation between public institutions and agencies in charge of skills supply. Set up platforms for cooperation in skill supply and short and long-term educational planning in each region.

The policy goal is to develop a training system that is fully focused on customers, businesses and employees, aligning skills potential with growth investment. By changing the way funding flows through the system, and to place responsibility and reward for investment more squarely with employers for employer-facing programmes, such as Apprenticeships. The Employer Ownership of Skills pilot is a competitive fund open to employers to invest in their current and future workforce in England. Government will invest in projects in which employers are also prepared to commit their own funds, in order to make better use of our combined resources.

The instrument was developed in response to growing evidence that UK skills policy had not always met the needs of employers, and that levels of investment in skills development was insufficient to drive business and economic growth. The rationale for the intervention (which was also found to be in line with the beneficiaries' motivations in the 2015 Survey) was to: improve the ability of employees to do their job, to acquire the skills needed to grow businesses, and to increase understanding of the skills or training needs of employees.