Professionalization of Vocational Roles of Public Employment Services Employees in Europe Through Competency Profiling

Abstract

The aim of this article is the development of competence profile for employment counsellors within public employment services, reflecting the recent changes and redefinition of these professional roles. This article aims to analyse the state-of-play in relation to professionalization of vocational roles of PES employees in Europe, on the basis of research conducted by the author in the years 2012–2014 for the European Commission. These studies included literature review, analysis of available research and structured survey conducted among representatives of the Public Employment Services in 22 EU countries, complemented by in-depth interviews and analysis of solutions used in PES. On the basis of this research a European reference competence profile for PES and EURES counsellors has been created by the author for the purposes of increasing professionalization of roles within these specific public services.

Keywords

• public employment services
• professionalization of vocational roles
• human resources management in public administration
• competency profiling