Brussels, 19/05/2006
In Europe, 80 million people are considered low-skilled. Europe's population is ageing and companies face more and more skills shortages. To be fit for future jobs, workers need higher skill levels, and up-to-date and adaptable competences. In order to respond to these challenges, alleviate obstacles to companies' competitiveness and raise the employability of workers, the European social partners decided in 2002 to coordinate their actions in the field of lifelong learning. What is at stake? The development of competences is essential if Europe is to become the most competitive, knowledge-based economy and society in the world.
Therefore, to tackle labour markets problems and boost workers' adaptability, the European social partners adopted a framework of actions on lifelong learning, highlighting four priorities for action and identifying practical tools for the social partners to use at national, sectoral and company levels. They monitored progress annually and conducted a comprehensive evaluation of this work in 2006.
The report analyses the impact of more than 350 selected social partners' initiatives, 108 of them aimed at identifying skills needs, 89 at finding ways to validate competences, 53 at informing and guiding companies or workers and 100 at mobilising resources efficiently. Among the initiatives analysed, over 70 concern companies' good practice examples and 280 comprise social partners' initiatives at sectoral or national levels.
Through their coordination process, the social partners have achieved greater focus and efficiency in their actions in each Member State. Competence development has been enhanced as a shared interest for employers and employees and the joint work has helped find concrete solutions to modernise education and training systems. In order to continue contributing to the European growth and jobs strategy, the European social partners will build on this work in the framework of their work programme 2006-2008.
The framework of actions on lifelong learning, the three annual progress reports and the evaluation report (short version at annex) are available on the European social partners' websites.
- The framework of actions on lifelong learning
For more information please contact:
Maria Fernanda Fau, UNICE Tel.:+32(0)2 237 65 62 www.unice.org
Francesco Longu, UEAPME Tel.:+32(0)2 230 75 99 www.ueapme.com
Valeria Ronzitti, CEEP Tel.:+32(0)2 229 21 42 www.ceep.org
Patricia Grillo, ETUC Tel.: +32(0)2 224 04 30 www.etuc.org