Workshop on the role of the Employment Service Providers in skills needs' identification and matching

Improving employability and transition to work are among the most pressing priorities for policy-makers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. To achieve such priorities, consolidation of mechanisms to match labour supply to demand is necessary. Authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina strive to produce reliable and regular information about the labour market trends, emerging skills needs and particular developments of certain economic sectors. Public Employment Services and the Statistical Institutes, at both State and entities’ level, form the backbone of labour market information system of the country. Regular scanning exercises of employers’ needs are carried out and the Labour Force Survey evolved to a robust instrument fit to provide essential information for policy planning.
Policy makers and implementers in Bosnia and Herzegovina face, however, a number of challenges, for example: full exploration of skills demand within existing labour market analyses, extending the time horizon of analyses by moving towards longer term projections; stronger cooperation and dissemination channels to both wider public and specialised audience, especially to education decision makers.
The objective of the event is twofold:
- sharing experiences on best practices in using information on skills needs in policy making and better matching;
- fostering discussion on next steps to improve existing practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina for skills needs’ identification (in particular employers’ surveys), including the use of results in policy-making.
The event will specifically focus on the role of public employment services in both skills needs identification and matching supply with demand, and will rely on sharing concrete and relevant experiences of EU Member States and ETF partner countries.
Participants are representatives of Ministry of Civil Affairs (Employment Sector), employment service agencies (State and entities’ level) and State Statistics Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Present event is part of the longer-term support package to be provided by the ETF to Bosnia and Herzegovina, in line with country’s strategical priorities in the area of employment, skills and employability (Economic Reform Programme 2017-2019, Economic Reform Agenda, EU IPA programming priorities, State and entities’ employment and skills strategic priorities).

More information

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Developing and running an establishment skills survey - Guide to anticipating and matching skills and jobs Vol. 5