Cedefop and Eurofound have joined expertise and resources to carry out the 4th European company survey. The survey will explore the strategies companies deploy to organise work, design jobs and manage human resources and skills to meet their business objectives and boost their performance.

A call for tenders to secure specialised support for the preparation and the implementation of the survey has been launched and the deadline for submissions is 16 June. The survey, which will take place in 2019, will provide empirical evidence to the agencies’ stakeholders.

It will support policies for European Union (EU) competitiveness and also be of relevance to initiatives such as the New skills agenda for Europe, the EU industrial policy, the digital single market strategy and the social dialogue relaunch initiatives.

The survey will build upon previous work and evidence by the two agencies but will explore in particular companies’ skills strategies (i.e. recruitment, skills utilisation and training/learning), and will place special emphasis on the impact of work automation and digitalisation.

On 11 May, Cedefop Director James Calleja and his Eurofound counterpart Juan Menendez-Valdez presided at a meeting of the steering group, which is composed of representatives of each agency’s Governing Board – i.e. governments, representatives of employers’ associations and trade unions and the European Commission.

Both directors underlined the strategic and political importance of this cross-agency collaboration, which shows that, despite their different mandates, agencies are ready to work together to generate synergies, savings and added value for the EU.

For further information, consult the project page.