Labour Market Observatories - SECTORAL Level examples

Level: SECTORAL

France

The Observatories of Occupations Qualifications and Skills (OPMQCs) have a common legal base: the National Inter-Professional Agreement (2003 and 2009), which stipulates their social-partnership-based governance and their mission and objectives as mechanisms for the active monitoring of occupational development and the relationship between employment and training. OPMQCs form an indispensable support for the effective management of vocational education and training, occupational mobility and careers within various branches of employment (associations, companies and trade unions). OPMQCs are permanent structures.

The 126 OPMQCs now operating have been established in successive waves since the early 2000s; their configuration has evolved from larger structures with several FTEs (full-time equivalents; human resources) and annual budgets (in the earlier period); to the less resource-intensive structures created more recently, operating with less than one FTE, and often linked with other existing institutions.

The output of OPMQCs has a number of common features: they produce studies and reports, as well as databases (data, classifiers and catalogues of occupation standards); 50% of them publish forward-looking analytical reviews; and 75% of them produce recommendations for action, policy measures and forward planning. They provide analysis and information on training issues, occupational mobility, recruitment and external communication with regard to the branch occupations. Their main users are: enterprises and employees in a particular branch of employment; young people; training providers; the wider public; and the region.

A survey carried out by Céreq showed a clear rising trend in OPMQCs’ roles. However, they face strong institutional uncertainties and resource constraints, as well as being hampered by using rather heterogeneous analytical approaches and methods, and thus require more support in building synergies and sharing good practice.

The example of Observia (an Observatory of occupations in the food industry) provided in the final part of this section (under 'Other Examples') shows the types of analysis and information products delivered by such an Observatory.