A new thematic paper by the European PES Network explores new strategies and measures of Public Employment Services (PES) for supporting the green transition and mitigating its social impacts, and sets out recommendations for future improvements. PES are key actors in the greening of the labour market and need to continue exchanging with each other and cooperating with strategic partners to overcome its complex challenges.

© PES Network

A new PES Network thematic paper on “PES support to greening of the labour market” highlights that an increasing number of PES have included the green transition in their strategies at national and/or regional levels.

The paper reminds that PES have a crucial role in smoothing the transition towards a greener economy, helping companies that are developing activities within the green or greening economy to access a pool of skilled workers and mitigating negative labour market effects.

To help PES to advance in their activities, continued efforts are needed within the PES Network to further elaborate common definitions of green sectors, companies, jobs/activities and skills. More research is also needed on identifying new required skills, small skills adaptation and relevant portable skills, encompassing not only technical skills and soft skills, but also values and behaviours.

In addition, peer exchange can support learning about specific measures to support green projects and measures to mitigate labour market and social impacts of declining polluting industries. This can include becoming partners in small-scale, ecological transition projects at local level.

An overall message is the need to intensify cooperation with companies, training institutions and other stakeholders at local and regional levels to ensure the effective identification of skills needs, supporting the transferability of skills from one occupation to another and developing and implementing training activities that match companies’ and workers’ needs. To support these efforts, PES are encouraged to make use of EU funds available in particular via the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the ESF+.

The thematic paper was produced following a PES Network Thematic Review Workshop on the greening of the labour market held in January 2023.

See also the 2022 PES Network Position Paper A contribution to the topic ‘Greening the labour market’.