Skilled labour immigration: A new role for Public Employment Services?

Labour markets in Europe are facing considerable talent shortages due to demographic changes, technological developments and evolving occupational preferences. Even if the situation varies across countries, recent analysis reveals that there is labour shortage in several sectors and occupations, in particular health and personal care, but also seasonal work in agriculture, construction workers and certain ICT specialists.

Worldwide, several countries have developed policy strategies for targeted labour immigration. These include online platforms for selection and targeted international recruitment programs initiated by PES or other stakeholders. Often, private recruitment agencies are involved. All initiatives have as common objective to structure and facilitate the process of skilled labour immigration.

Objective of the webinar

This online workshop initiated by the PES Germany has the objective to present and discuss the state of play and new initiatives with a view to PES approaches for recruitment using bilateral agreements.

It covers the following aspects:

• Policy lessons: Which key ingredients make international recruitment strategies a success and what are main obstacles?
• PES strategies: How can PES effectively contribute to recruiting for vacancies difficult to fill?
• Fair recruitment: How to best ensure fairness with a view to workers, sending countries and competing recruiters?

Program

Available documents