ESCO - European skills, competences and occupations – can benefit you too

The new ESCO major version is published for consultations. ESCO, a classification of European Skills, Competences, and Occupations, was designed to reflect knowledge and skills required for occupations. It was introduced to support labour mobility across EU member states. However, ESCO appeared to be well suited for other usage contexts.

ESCO is increasingly used in advertising job vacancies, recruitment, human resource management and training, curricula development and skills assessment, big data analysis of the labour market, machine learning and data mining. 

So, why using ESCO benefits both the labour market and the world of education and training? Here’s some reasons.

Interoperability of ESCO

ESCO can be linked to the national classifications. It uses ISCO groups to classify occupations allowing mapping of national occupational classifications to it. ISCED is also used, to map ESCO knowledge concepts. Thus, ESCO occupations, knowledge and skills can be directly linked to their national equivalents.

A reference tool for comparison of qualifications and matching

Qualifications are described in different ways. To compare qualifications, we need a reference point against which the learning outcomes can be mapped. ESCO can be used as a possible basis for such comparison by providing skills profiles of occupations.

Moreover, demonstrating the correspondence of learning outcomes to ESCO skills, national stakeholders and policymakers can address the issue of the relevance and quality of their national qualifications.

Integration with digital platforms

Offering a “common language” which can be understood by electronic systems, ESCO is integrated with a significant number of digital platforms. Europass and employment services use ESCO to create individual e-Portfolios and match learners and jobseekers with employment or learning opportunities. Open Badges platforms use ESCO to digitally describe skills, qualifications, and learning achievements of individuals.

Similar to the use of EQF data fields in qualifications registers, ESCO  has the potential to structure the information on qualifications. The new ESCO skills hierarchy would make it easier to link skills with learning outcomes descriptions of qualifications or descriptions of vacancies at the labour market.

A tool that is improved and updated continuously

Global developments at the labour markets – new technologies, digitalization, greening of the economy, changes brought by the Covid 19 crisis – are changing the skills that employers need. ESCO is changing as well.

Currently a major change in ESCO is taking place to reflect these developments. The new ESCO major version will include new and modified occupations, skills and knowledge concepts. This will allow to access and use the most up-to-date information on occupations and skills.

ESCO is free and open to use. If you are an education and training provider, career guidance service, a recruiter, or a provider of employment services, or you want to use the ESCO knowledge base to develop occupational standards, qualifications and curricula, validation systems or upskilling and reskilling training programmes, it can benefit you too.

The European Commission launched a consultation process for the ESCO new major version. ETF is in close contact with ESCO to provide our feedback on its content and support partner countries in the use of ESCO. We invite you to check the new and modified concepts and provide your feedback, comments and changes. To know more about the new version and consultation process, please visit Open Space page https://openspace.etf.europa.eu/pages/new-esco-major-version-consultation-your-opportunity-surf-analyse-and-leave-feedback-escos