The 2022 edition of the PES Network Stakeholder Conference brought together Public Employment Services (PES) to explore ‘Jointly addressing labour and skills shortages – preparing for Europe’s future labour market’.

The event brought together around 400 participants from 30 countries, including representatives of PES, social partners, local authorities, private employment services, businesses, education and training providers, academics, the European commission and other international organisations.

It featured a mix of plenary panel discussions, thematic panel discussions and parallel workshops – all taking place online over a day and a half. Each thematic workshop saw discussions based around inspiring practical examples of national or regional practice from PES or their partners from across Europe.

You can find the full agenda and the plenary session recordings under ‘Related documents’ and ‘Related links’ at the foot of the page, but we provide a brief overview of the event below.

Agenda

Day 1, 7 April

The Conference saw opening messages from Jordi Curell, Director at DG Employment of the EU Commission and Johannes Kopf, Chair of the PES Network, and a keynote speech by Enzo Weber, Head of Research at the German Institute for Employment Research.

A first high-level panel focused on the latest trends around “Labour and skills shortages in Europe”:

• Jordi Curell, Director for Labour Mobility and International Affairs at the European Commission - DG EMPL
• Audrey Perocheau, Territorial Skills Development Director at PES France (Pôle Emploi)
• Tina Weber, Research Manager at Eurofound and co-author of the study “Tackling labour shortages in EU Member States”
• Claes-Mikael Ståhl, Deputy General Secretary at the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)
• Maxime Cerutti, Director of Social Affairs at BusinessEurope

A second high-level panel then saw exchanges on “Joint strategies and innovative approaches to address labour and skills shortages”:

• Sukti Dasgupta, Chief of the Employment, Labour Markets and Youth – EMPLAB Branch at the International Labour Organisation (ILO)
• Marie-Kristine Vanbockestal, General Administrator at PES Belgium-Wallonia (Le Forem)
• Denis Pennel, Managing Director at the World Employment Confederation -Europe
• Liliane Volozinskis, Social Affairs and Training Policy Director at SME United

The day continued with two parallel thematic clusters. Under each cluster, an opening panel discussion was followed by two thematic workshops featuring presentations of practice.

• Thematic Cluster A: Building resilience – addressing labour market shortages in specific economic sectors
• Thematic Cluster B: Meeting the needs of the future labour market

Day 2, 8 April

The second day of the Conference saw a third high-level panel discussion on “Promoting social and fair employment”

• Stefan Olsson, Director for Working Conditions and Social Dialogue at the European Commission - DG EMPL
• Cosmin Boiangiu, Executive Director at the European Labour Authority (ELA)
• Mark Keese, Head of Skills and Employability at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

This was followed by parallel thematic discussions and interactive workshops on:

• Thematic Cluster C: Improving attractiveness in shortage sectors;
• Thematic Cluster D: Untapping potential – towards the labour market of the future.

Conclusions

Johannes Kopf, Chair of the PES Network concluded the conference with a closing speech in which he thanked all participants for their engagement and highlighted the speed of change in Europe’s labour market and the importance of monitoring developments on the ground and reinforcing cooperation to get ahead of these changes and build resilience.

The PES Network Stakeholder Conference is the major annual event bringing together representatives of Public Employment Services (PES) with other key labour market organisations to share and exchange about topics of key relevance for Europe’s evolving employment market. The 2022 edition took place 100% online. The working language was English, with interpretation provided during plenary sessions in French, German, and Spanish.