European Classification of Skills/Competences, Qualifications and Occupations

The Commission is building machine learning models to suggest potential matches to ESCO occupations based on input such as job titles and occupation labels. This activity is related to the challenge of mapping textual descriptions of occupations to the existing ESCO occupations hierarchy. The following article showcases examples of occupation normalisation and mapping new job titles for existing/new occupations.

ESCO has been developed by experts and designed following a top-down hierarchical structure. But can we represent ESCO data in a different way to gain further insights? To answer this question, the European Commission is investigating the use of AI, and in particular representation learning. This article illustrates how artificial intelligence can assist in shaping the future versions of ESCO. 

The ESCO Skill-Occupation Matrix Tables are now available to connect ISCO-08 occupation groups (rather than one single occupation) to ESCO skills hierarchical groups (rather than one single skill). With these tables, ESCO implementers are free to choose different ESCO crosswalks between the occupation and skills pillar at various levels of granularity, depending on their use case.

The European Lung Foundation in collaboration with patient representatives and occupational health experts produced the Covid-19 and Workplace Tool. It supports anyone who has questions about going to their workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic, by asking questions about citizens' concerns and providing advice on steps that can make the workplace safer. This tool uses ESCO to detect the occupation of workers filling the survey.

The Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy in Croatia (MRSOP) has implemented ESCO to develop the National Platform for Advanced Analytics of Labour Market’s Mechanics and Dynamics. This platform enables Croatian policy makers to interact with combined data originating from various sources to present occupation and skills data divided into several thematic report groups, such as skill demand and supply.

JobsIreland is the Irish Public Employment Service of the Department of Social Protection. They offer a free job advertising service to employers and enable job seekers to search for jobs and create a profile to match their skills and experience with available jobs, using the ESCO classification as a common language.

The Albanian National Agency for Information Society, through contractor Communication Progress, has recently developed the National Employment Portal, for the Albanian National Employment and Skills Agency. The portal uses ESCO to support the Albanian labour market leveraging on information such as work experience and skills of candidates.

Relink is the new digital platform created by a public-private partnership between the National Training and Employment Service of the Chilean Ministry of Labour, the Sociedad de Fomento Fabril and its Organismo de Intermediación Laboral, and the Inter-American Development Bank. It provides upskilling and re-skilling opportunities for individuals and companies, considering the challenges provided by the current technological and digital transformation in Latin America.

The World Economic Forum has developed a framework for a global skills taxonomy to support the shift toward a skills-based labour market. The proposed taxonomy builds on the recognised work taken forward by ESCO and the Occupational Information Network (O*NET), enriched with skill trends highlighted in the Forum’s ongoing insights on the future of work.

Skilllab, an ESCO implementer, has recently published the White Paper "ESCO and the Creation of a Data-Rich Environment. An Opportunity for the EU Labour Market". The paper is aimed at providing information on the adoption of ESCO, its role in supporting European Public Employment Services and the EU Skills Agenda, and other benefits associated with its implementation.

Boostrs, an ESCO implementer, has conducted studies to investigate changes in the labour market. The white papers available at the links below aim to answer some of the most pressing questions related to automation, soft skills, and remote work.

The Commission discussed about the possible use of ESCO by Morocco and Israel and the potential it has for these countries. One peer-learning activity took place to support the Israeli Public employment Service in taking up ESCO. Moreover, the Commission presented ESCO to stakeholders of the THAMM project in Morocco.

EU Member States are currently mapping their national classifications of occupations (and skills, where available) to the ESCO classification, guided by the EURES legislation. The EURES and ESCO teams support this activity by organising a number of webinars. In the last training session, which took place on 9 and 10 March 2021, participants discussed the mapping process and its recurrent challenges, exchanged experiences on the adoption of the ESCO classification, and shared insights from their own experiences.