Information points report

Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion 23rd ESCO Maintenance Committee– Information points report

March 2017 2

ESCO (2017) SEC 004 FINAL

Document Date: 09/02/2017

Last update: 08/03/2017

Table of Contents

Table of Contents .............................................................................................. 2 Purpose of this document ................................................................................... 3 Third meeting of the Member States Working Group on ESCO ................................. 4 Integration of the Digital Competences Framework in the ESCO Transversal skills

thesaurus ......................................................................................................... 5 Update on the EURES Implementing Acts ............................................................. 8 Update on the organisation of the ESCO v1 launch conference ................................ 9 Feedback from the DGT translators on the ESCO content .......................................12

Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion 23rd ESCO Maintenance Committee– Information points report

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Purpose of this document The purpose of this document is to inform the ESCO Maintenance Committee (MAI) on

Commission action following their advice on ESCO and on recent developments on the

ESCO project.

The Commission will not provide formal presentations on the topics covered in this

document. We kindly invite the MAI members to submit questions via e-mail before

the meeting. We will collect the questions and report on them in the meeting.

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Third meeting of the Member States Working Group on ESCO

The third meeting of the Member States Working Group on ESCO (MSWG) took place

in Brussels last 12 of December 2016. It was attended by:

- representatives of 22 Member States’ (MS) authorities on labour market and

education and training (all MS except EE, ES, PT, PL, IE, GR),

- representatives of observer countries (IS, NO),

- representatives of European social partners (Business Europe, UEAPME and

ETUC),

- Commission services and CEDEFOP.

The main goals of the meeting were:

- to report on the results of the first phase of consultation on the English pre-

release version of ESCO and to introduce the second phase of consultation on

the ESCO linguistic versions;

- to provide an update on the last policy developments related to ESCO (Skills

Agenda, EURES, Europass);

- to present the results of pilot projects using ESCO; to discuss the next steps.

Following the presentations of the Commission services on these respective topics, the

discussion focussed on the following points:

- The new Commission proposal for governance of EU tools and services for skills

and qualifications, and the role and status of the MSWG in this governance: the

MS asked for clarifications on this issue, and the Commission services clarified

that the proposed new governance is currently being discussed at the

Education Committee.

- The current status of the new EURES regulation and the mappings of national

occupation classifications to ESCO: MS inquired about possible financial support

for implementing the mapping process. The Commission services stated that

technical support, and possibly financial support, will be provided. However,

this is still under discussion and the concrete modalities of this support will be

communicated at a later stage.

- The role of ESCO in the new Europass Decision: some MS expressed concerns

about the inclusion of ESCO in some articles of the new draft legal act and

asked for a revision of the text. This is currently being discussed in the

Education Committee.

- The continuous updating of ESCO: a first approach was presented by the

Commission services, which will be further developed.

- The consultation on the linguistic versions of ESCO to be launched beginning of

2017, which is taking place in two steps: the first one on the ESCO occupations

(February-March 2017) and the second one on the ESCO skills (April-May

2017).

Other subjects such as the progress status on the qualifications pillar or the

presentation of two pilot projects using ESCO were also discussed during this meeting.

The next steps will be the organisation of two webinars after each of the two

consultations of the MSWG on ESCO translations. The next MSWG meeting will

probably take place in May 2017. The dates will be communicated at a further stage.

For more detailed information, all the presentations and the minutes of the meeting

are available in Escopedia.

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Integration of the Digital Competences Framework in the ESCO Transversal skills thesaurus The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens, also known as DigComp, is a tool to:

improve citizens’ digital competence;

help policy-makers formulate policies that support digital competence building

and

plan education and training initiatives to improve the digital competence of

specific target groups.

DigComp also provides a common language on how to identify and describe the key

areas of digital competence and thus offers a common reference at European level. It

was first published in 2013 by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies

(IPTS) of the European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC). The origin of this

work goes back to 2006 when the European Union proposed eight key competences

for lifelong learning, one of which was Digital Competence. DigComp is integrated in

EUROPASS under the section “Digital competence”. Please see the image below:

Figure 1 EUROPASS structure of digital skills

In 2016 a new version, DigComp 2.0, was published. DigComp 2.0 is the first part of a

larger update that foresees improvements to the conceptual reference model. These

include revising the competence areas, the competence descriptors and their titles.

DigComp 2.0 structures 21 competence descriptors in the following five competence

areas:

1. Information and data literacy

2. Communication and collaboration

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3. Digital content creation

4. Safety

5. Problem solving

Skills Aiming at achieving convergence between DigComp and the ESCO Transversal ICT

skills thesaurus, in 2015 the Commission services and IPTS carried out a mapping

between the two skills thesauri. The results showed that they were very similar. This

led the Commission services to aim for a complete alignment between the two

thesauri by integrating the 21 competence descriptors of DigComp into the ESCO

transversal ICT skills.

Below you can find a list of 18 new skills and knowledge (17 skills and 1 knowledge) in

the ESCO Transversal ICT skills thesaurus which have been extracted from DigComp.

Three of the DigComp skills perfectly matched skills in the ESCO Transversal ICT skills

thesaurus and were kept unchanged

New skill

browse, search and filter data, information and digital content

manage data, information and digital content

evaluate data, information and digital content

interact through digital technologies

share through digital technologies

engage in citizenship through digital technologies

collaborate through digital technologies

manage digital identity

develop digital content

integrate and re-elaborate digital content

copyright and licenses related to digital content

protect personal data and privacy

protect health and well-being while using digital technologies

protect the environment from the impact of the digital technologies

solve technical problems

identify needs and technological responses

creatively use digital technologies

identify digital competence gaps Table 1 New skills integrated in the ESCO Transversal ICT thesaurus

Skill groups With regard to the skill groups, some of these are slightly different between the two

thesaurus. The titles for some in DigComp do not contain the ICT element while in the

ESCO Transversal ICT skills thesaurus they do, e.g. Safety (DigComp) vs. ICT safety

(ESCO Transversal ICT skills thesaurus). We believe that the ICT element should be

explicitly mentioned in the title of the skill group. The Commission services will meet

with IPTS to agree on a common approach. In addition, we implemented slight

improvements to three of the skill group titles in the ESCO Transversal ICT skills

thesaurus to better match the ones in DigComp. Below you find a list of these skill

groups in the ESCO Transversal ICT skills thesaurus:

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DigComp Current ESCO Transversal

ICT skills

Old ESCO Transversal ICT

skills

Information and data

literacy

Digital data processing Digital data processing

Communication and

collaboration

Digital communication and

collaboration

Digital communication

Digital content creation Digital content creation Content creation with ICT

software

Safety ICT safety ICT safety

Problem-solving Problem-solving with digital

tools

Problem-solving with ICT

tools and hardware Table 2 Skills groups in DigComp, and the ESCO Transversal ICT thesaurus (old and current)

The 21 new additions to the ESCO Transversal ICT skills thesaurus will be

communicated to DGT for their translation.

Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion 23rd ESCO Maintenance Committee– Information points report

March 2017 8

Update on the EURES Implementing Acts The Commission services received various questions on art. 19 of the new EURES

Regulation1. We collected these questions and are preparing a Q&A document in

cooperation with the services responsible for the EURES network. As soon as this

document is finished (expected in March 2017), we will share it with the MAI.

1 Regulation (EU) 2016/589 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 April

2016 on a European network of employment services (EURES), workers' access to

mobility services and the further integration of labour markets, and amending

Regulations (EU) No 492/2011 and (EU) No 1296/2013.

Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion 23rd ESCO Maintenance Committee– Information points report

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Update on the organisation of the ESCO v1 launch conference Since the last MAI meeting in December 2016, the Commission services have

prepared a briefing note to be presented to the Cabinet of the Commissioner for

Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility- Marianne Thyssen. This internal

document informs the Commissioner about the concept for the ESCO conference 2017,

it outlines a draft conference programme, and seeks to invite the Commissioner to

open the main high level event.

The annex containing the draft programme is presented below. Participating speakers

and organisations still need to be confirmed.

Draft programme of the ESCO conference 2017

Day 1: Technical workshops These working sessions on day 1 will include short explanations on ESCO features

and/or presentations of concrete show cases/pilot projects illustrating how ESCO

works in applications. Their focus is on purpose, functionality, added-value and

technical implementation aspects of ESCO. The selected showcases are indicative and

can be subject to change.

09.00 – 09.15 - Registration and welcome coffee -

09.15 – 09.30 Welcome

09.30 – 09.45 Main features of ESCO v1

09.50 – 11.10 LABOUR MARKET | WORKSHOP

Boosting job search & matching with ESCO

DG EMPL (ESCO)

DG EMPL (EURES)

SME specialised in job matching

EDUCATION | WORKSHOP

Building the qualifications pillar

DG EMPL (ESCO)

Member State representative responsible for national qualification database

1 or 2 private companies delivering qualifications

BIG DATA | WORKSHOP

ESCO supporting big data analyses

Cedefop

Eurostat

11.10 – 11.30 - Coffee break -

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11.30 – 12.00 LABOUR MARKET | SHOWCASE

Semantic job search

SME specialised in HR software

EDUCATION | SHOWCASE

Study on comparison of VET curricula

Cedefop

MISC. | SHOWCASE

Talent management in the media sector

European Broadcasting Union (TBC)

Additional session TBC

12.10 – 12.45 LABOUR MARKET | SHOWCASE

ESCO supporting job search engines

SME specialised in job searching.

EDUCATION | SHOWCASE

Transparent qualifications

Academic show case

MISC. | SHOWCASE

The challenge of recording refugee skills

DG EMPL

BIG DATA | ACADEMIC

Big data analyses of the labour market

Speaker TBC

12.45 – 13.45 - Lunch -

13.45 – 14.30 LABOUR MARKET | WORKSHOP

The common EURES IT platform & the mapping process

DG EMPL (ESCO)

DG EMPL (EURES)

EDUCATION | WORKSHOP

E-profiles in the new Europass

DG EMPL (Europass²)

MISC. | ACADEMIC

Machine learning in knowledge engineering

Speaker TBC

Additional session TBC

14.30 – 15.15 LABOUR MARKET | SHOWCASE

A presentation on innovative approaches in PES

A PES of a Member State (TBC)

EDUCATION | SHOWCASE

OPENSKIMR: A map to employability(TBC)

Show case

MISC. | SHOWCASE

Continuous improvement of ESCO:

ESCO MAI member (TBC) Show case (TBC)

Additional session TBC

15.15 – 15.45 - Coffee break -

15.45 – 16.15 QUIZ

Guess my occupation

16.15 – 17.00 LABOUR MARKET | ACADEMIC

Digitisation of the labour market and the role of online platforms

Speaker TBC

EDUCATION | WORKSHOP

E-profiles in the new Europass

DG EMPL (Europass²)

Additional session TBC

BIG DATA | SHOWCASE

Insights from social media big data

Show case social media

Day 2: High-level event

Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion 23rd ESCO Maintenance Committee– Information points report

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09.30 – 10.00 - Registration and welcome coffee -

10.00 – 10.30 Official opening of the main event

Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner, Employment, Social affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility (tbc)

10.30 – 11.15 Changing labour market and education paradigms: citizenship and employability

Keynote address

Speaker tbc

11.15 – 11.45 - Coffee break -

11.45 – 12.15 Vision and added value of ESCO

Presentation by DG EMPL

12.15 – 12.45 Results of the ESCO hackathon (tbc)

12.45 – 14.15 - Lunch -

14.15 – 15.30 Digitisation of the labour market - changing trends and implications

Panel discussion

- DG EMPL

- ILO representative (tbc)

- Presidency representative (tbc)

- Cedefop (tbc)

- MNC or SME representative (tbc)

- OECD (tbc)

- ESCO Board representative (tbc)

15.30 – 16.00 Closing of the ESCO conference

Speaker tbc

16.00 – 16.30 - Farewell coffee -

While the feedback from the Cabinet is still pending, the MAI members are invited to

express any further feedback they might have on this topic.

Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion 23rd ESCO Maintenance Committee– Information points report

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Feedback from the DGT translators on the ESCO content

Since September 2016, an exchange of questions and answers concerning the

translation of the ESCO classification between DG EMPL (ESCO) and DGT has taken

place via emails as well as the dedicated ESCO forum. The forum has been maintained

by DGT with access limited to DGT translators, selected ESCO team members and

national experts.

Over time, the exchange of emails evolved into reporting that uses a standard

template through which technical issues have been submitted by the single point of

contact (DGT lead translator).

Content-related queries as well as more general questions concerning methodologies,

terminological guidelines etc. are published on the ESCO forum.

Since its launch until 6 March 2017, 1064 posts were published on the forum

encompassing as many as 289 topics. ESCO team members intervened more than 200

times on the forum, either by publishing posts or, more often, by replying to queries

coming from individual translators or from the lead translator, who collected common

observations from colleagues or referred to a general issue.

Concerning the content related feedback on ESCO submitted by our DGT colleagues, it

falls into the following categories:

A. Requests for a clarification regarding formulations of occupation titles or

descriptions in the case of either lexical doubts or the alleged lack of

consistency between the two.

This includes the cases when the occupation title implied a broader (or narrower)

translation than the description itself, which occurred for the surface treatment

operator. Its description stated that the person applies paint to the surfaces of the

vessel.

After analysis, we agreed that the description should not be narrowed down to vessels

only but it should encompass all types of surfaces in general. We advised the

translator accordingly and adapted the description.

B. Queries regarding potential duplicates among OCC. In this category,

translators informed us about pairs of occupations that seemed to overlap partly or in

full as in the case media scholar and editorial scientist.

We analysed each case carefully especially in terms of how similar the descriptions,

non-preferred terms and related skills were. As a result, we merged several pairs of

occupations as in the example given whenever they turned out to be very similar to

each other at the three levels. After the merge, the surviving preferred terms inherited

the skills of the two original occupations.

C. Suggestions concerning ISCO groups as shown in the ESCO tree, with the

proposed reclassification of some occupations. We have consulted the submitted

cases with an ISCO expert. As a result, some shifts in ISCO groups have occurred,

whereas the majority of the occupations in question have remained within their

original ISCO groups.

We have noted that a relevant ISCO group identification helped the translators to

better understand, and consequently to translate, a given occupation.

D. The relation between non-preferred terms and their respective preferred

terms. We have received questions concerning the type of relation between the two

and the influence of existing non-preferred terms on the preferred term. We have also

been asked about the need to translate non-preferred terms into target languages.

In reply, we explained that - as the translation of a preferred term is based on its

description – it should reflect in the most concise but precise way and as closely as

possible the content conveyed by its description.

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We also underlined that that we do not translate non-preferred terms, which could be

both synonyms and non-synonyms of their preferred term, including gender forms of

occupation titles, but as a rule narrower or equal in their scope than the respective

preferred term. We emphasised that in a given target language, non-preferred terms

may exist or not depending on the local labour market, and they should be formulated

in a given language accordingly.

E. Concepts that have no denotations in the target language. Here we have

received queries concerning the need to translate a concept into a specific target

language. The doubts arose from the fact that not all ESCO occupations seem to exist

on individual labour markets due to their specificity or owing to the fact that e.g. an

industry has closed down.

We have always advised the translators to translate the concepts into their respective

languages based on the assumption that all the ESCO concepts in the reference

language should be rendered in all target languages. We also believe that such

translations might still be relevant and used for scientific or historical reasons.