Cedefop Director James Calleja had a brief meeting with the European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility Marianne Thyssen at the European Training Foundation (ETF) conference on 'changing skills for a changing world' on 8 June in Turin.

Mr Calleja informed the Commissioner of Cedefop's work in transforming the real-time labour market intelligence pilot project into a full-fledged tool informing stakeholders about the skills employers are looking for. Ms Thyssen said it would be a pleasure to visit Cedefop again next year to launch the first phase of the tool.

The agency has joined forces with Eurostat and DG EMPL to develop an EU-wide system to collect and analyse data on skill demand using online job postings. Cedefop has already developed a prototype multilingual system and successfully tested it in five countries (the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy and Ireland). First data will be released in 2018 and the system will be fully operational at the end of 2020.

Mr Calleja also briefed the Commissioner on the activities Cedefop has planned to support the New skills agenda for Europe and the Council decision on upskilling pathways: new opportunities for adults. Policy learning forums and activities on themes related to apprenticeships and low-skilled adults are part and parcel of the Cedefop 2017 work programme and the 2017-20 programming document. Ms Thyssen showed appreciation for Cedefop’s ongoing support.

Cedefop-ETF cooperation

Left to right: Cedefop Director James Calleja, ETF outgoing Director Madlen Serban and ETF incoming Director Cesare Onestini

Following the conference, a meeting on the Cedefop-ETF cooperation took place. Participants were Directors James Calleja and Madlen Serban respectively, the incoming ETF Director Cesare Onestini, who takes up his duties in September, as well as the coordinators of cooperation, Cedefop Head of Department for VET Systems and Institutions Loukas Zahilas and ETF Head of Operations Anastasia Fetsi.

In the meeting, Mr Onestini had the opportunity to get detailed information on the long-standing cooperation between the agencies and the two parties initiated discussion of the broad themes that will be covered in the period 2018-20.