Integrated career guidance system

Organic Act 5/2002 foresaw the design and development of an integrated system of professional guidance - educational and labour - but it has not yet been developed. The working group on information and career guidance set up by the general council for vocational training (CGFP in Spanish) has been working in 2019 on the analysis of how career guidance works in the education and labour systems. The reason for this is that active employment policies, as well as education policies, including vocational guidance services, are the responsibility of the Autonomous Communities. The group has also worked in preparing proposals on the general bases for the articulation of the integrated guidance system, its recipients, objectives and purposes, principles, content and types of intervention, training and competence profile of the counsellor. This report was presented to the CGFP in May 2019 and a second report on the competences of the career guidance counsellors was approved at the end of 2019. A first joint training workshop for career guidance professionals in an integrated system took place in March 2020.

Career guidance activities, as one of the services included in the common employment services portfolio, are monitored by the national employment system and the reports and data collected confirm overall compliance in all regions with both the degree of implementation of activities and protocols.

In line with the European Union's recommendations on active employment policies in the framework of the Europe 2020 strategy, and the OECD and World Bank reports on good practice in guidance, the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) is developing a prototype of a digital guidance support tool, related to the profiling of job seekers. The main objective of the project is to provide guidance counsellors with a support tool that, based on individual data and using SEPE's statistical information, provides them with information on how the characteristics of the demand and the services received by the applicant affect the improvement of their employability, including also recommendations for services.

Order TMS/941/2019, of 6 September, distributed additional subsidies territorially in the area of active employment policies, including funds for the implementation of the Action plan for youth employment 2019-21 and the Triennial plan for preventing and reducing long-term unemployment. These funds were intended to strengthen the network of staff dedicated to career guidance for employment and job prospecting, as mentioned in both plans.

In the Action plan for youth employment 2019-21, career guidance is one of the axes on which the plan is organised. Measure 4 provides that through the Spanish Youth Institute (INJUVE) and with the support of the State Public Employment Service, the network of youth information centres and the Spanish youth institute (SIJ-INJUVE network) are to be reinforced with 110 youth mediators, in order to cater for and facilitate young people access to services and schemes offered by the national employment system. This action will count with the participation of a great variety of youth organisations (youth associations, youth unions, migrant and neighbourhood associations). The coordination and programming of activities is to be carried out by INJUVE in collaboration with the Public Employment Services and the aforementioned entities and associations. These youth mediators will work in cooperation with the PES and local employment agencies, establishing cooperation channels with the 3 000 professional counsellors hired for the ORIENTAJOVEN programme.

At both State and regional levels, the recruitment of the counsellors was under way.

The Triennial plan for preventing and reducing long-term unemployment (Reincorpora-T) also considers different measures within its career guidance axis, aimed at improving the services for support, employability for all long-term unemployed, and improving their possibilities for achieving employment.

In the plan for the modernisation of VET (2019-2023), presented by the President of the Government in July 2020, guidance is one of the strategic areas. The aim is to reinforce vocational guidance tools on the Todofp.es platform through its expansion, and to foster vocational guidance.

The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy and other stakeholders, was designing a plan for the development of the integrated vocational guidance system. At the third Meeting for guidance in Spain, held as a virtual event, representatives of various entities linked to vocational, academic and employment guidance discussed and elaborated recommendations for the design and implementation of such a plan.

The closure of education centres due to the coronavirus during the months of March to June 2020, also affected academic and vocational guidance. In response, both groups of counsellors and institutions used new or existing platforms to share online guidance resources with teachers as well as with learners, to help them 'self-guide' in making decisions about their academic and professional future.

SEPE has developed a digital guidance support tool, SEND@, related to the profiling of job seekers, which was tested in 2020. The main objective of SEND@ is to provide career guidance practitioners with a support tool that, based on individual data and using SEPE's statistical information, offers information on how the characteristics of the demand and the services received by the applicants affect the improvement of their employability, also including recommendations for services. SEND@ was tested in the regional PES and is in the process of total implementation.

Career guidance was reinforced in the Spanish Public Employment Services through actions foreseen in the action plan for youth employment and the 3-year plan to prevent and reduce long-term unemployment 2019-2021 (Reincorpora-T):

1. the recruitment of 3 000 career guidance practitioners for the national and regional PES is almost completed, which has meant increasing by 82% the previous guidance staff. The tasks assigned to this Orienta 3 000 network include personalised diagnoses, development of employment and training itineraries, coordination of the actions of different specialised agents, market prospecting tasks, and the attraction of job offers;
2. in some regional PES, new roles have been developed among career guidance staff to liaise better with other services: EURES tutors; Youth guarantee specialist; tutors and staff specialised in caring for women victims of gender violence; specialists for reception plans for people receiving a minimum guaranteed income (Renta Garantizada de Ciudadanía); or specialists for the labour reception of migrants.

Several actions tool place at regional level: organisation of job fairs, creation of protocols for caring for women victims of gender violence (by women's institutes or general directorates for women), and creation of protocols with social services for beneficiaries of different incomes.

All the career guidance staff have received initial training on tools and procedures: company prospecting activities, specific training on equal opportunities, identification and elimination of gender biases and any other personal or social circumstance, including training from a perspective of attention to vulnerable people in the labour market.

The situation generated by COVID-19, and the state of alarm since mid-March, led to the revision and redrafting of the 2020 activity plans of the regional PES in line with the labour crisis generated and the possibilities for action. With the technical assistance of the World Bank, identification of good practices began in June 2020: a series of interviews carried out with the regional PES identified 17 good practices on vocational guidance (from a total 33 in different areas). The shared learning will take material form in a national (March 2021) good practices' day and an international day later on in the year.

Career guidance measures are foreseen in the new Spanish Employment Activation Strategy, and are being prepared.