The new role of public employment services (PES) in the context of the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (own-initiative opinion)

Key points

The EESC:

• appreciates the contribution of the European Public Employment Services Network to modernising and strengthening public employment services and calls for synergy between its updated strategy going beyond 2020 and the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights;
• has identified some areas where a greater effort is needed based on partnership with all stakeholders, the social partners, civil society organisations, companies and private employment services to make a concerted effort to achieve better integration of jobseekers into the labour market;
• points out that an innovative role for public employment services in implementing national employment and labour market policies and in guaranteeing more effective services for companies has to be properly supported at national level with sufficient capacity, skilled staff, IT and technical equipment relevant to the digitalisation of the society, and financial support;
• calls for more systematic and structural cooperation between public employment services and other service providers in the social and employment fields to address the multiple range of barriers jobseekers face when trying to enter the labour market. Active and regular participation of social partners in public employment services activity is key in order to map local job opportunities and help meet mismatches in the labour market;
• calls for closer synergies between public employment services and social infrastructure and benefits systems in order to provide more support for unemployed people in their job search and to avoid those seeking employment being penalised when they re-enter the labour market;
• calls for greater financial support for the Member States and hopes that the European Social Fund Plus will become a genuine EU instrument for investing in people and implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights;
• considers that greater efforts should be made to monitor, evaluate and benchmark public employment services to assess the effectiveness of these services in assisting jobseekers entering the labour market;
• calls for a review of the existing arrangements for measuring the outcomes of public employment services working programmes, to ensure that services benefit all categories of people, especially those who have multiple problems.