AI-enhanced public employment services for skills forecasting in Europe

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Description

Context & overview

Across Europe, Public Employment Services (PES) play a central role in connecting citizens with jobs, training opportunities and reskilling pathways. With labour markets evolving rapidly, traditional approaches to vacancy monitoring and candidate support became insufficient. To respond, the PES Network launched coordinated efforts to integrate AI into service delivery and governance. A recent mapping exercise identified 34 AI applications across 11 PES organisations in Europe, focusing on skill extraction, job matching, profiling and proactive career guidance.

 

Challenges addressed

Labour market signals were fragmented and too slow to inform timely policy or training adaptation.

Jobseekers required more personalised support to navigate complex employment landscapes.

Employers struggled to identify suitable candidates efficiently, especially for emerging skill needs.

Public services faced increasing demand, while resources for case workers remained limited.

 

Solution implemented

European PES introduced a range of AI-powered applications to strengthen labour market intelligence and improve service quality:

  1. Skills extraction and classification 🡪 AI analyses job postings and CVs, mapping competences against the ESCO taxonomy, enabling comparability across countries.
  2. Jobseeker profiling and matching 🡪 algorithms suggest vacancies tailored to individual skills, experience and preferences.
  3. Career guidance chatbots and assistants 🡪 virtual tools provide 24/7 support, answering FAQs and directing users to training or job offers.
  4. Predictive analytics 🡪 some PES use AI models to anticipate labour market trends and forecast demand for specific occupations.

Impact & results

AI is operated in 11 PES organisations, demonstrating cross-national applicability. Automated matching reduced processing times, allowing counsellors to focus on complex, high-value cases. In addition, jobseekers received more tailored offers and guidance, improving satisfaction and engagement. Finally, AI-enabled labour market intelligence generated real-tome data to inform training systems and VET curricula.

Reference Link

https://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=27923&langId=en

Keywords

Predictive labour analytics, AI job matching, public employment governance, cross-national skills intelligence, career guidance automation

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