PESPod - the insiders' guide to the EU labour market (pespodeu)

The latest episode of PESPod, the podcast of the European Network of Public Employment Services (PES Network), explores how PES are helping jobseekers and employers prepare for the skills needed in tomorrow’s labour market. Across Europe, the triple transitions of digitalisation, demographic change and the greening of the labour market are reshaping job requirements. This episode examines how PES...

The latest episode of PESPod – the podcast of the European Network of Public Employment Services (PES Network) – focuses on Finland which has recently undergone significant structural changes. Finland’s TE Services 2024 (TE24) reform, which came into force in January 2025, transferred responsibility for public employment services from the national level to municipalities and employment areas forme...

The latest episode of PESPod – the podcast of the European Network of Public Employment Services (PES Network) – explores how Public Employment Services (PES) can promote fair and ethical recruitment of workers from outside the European Union. With skill shortages growing across Europe and many employers turning to third-country nationals (TCNs) to fill vacancies, this episode focuses on how PES c...

The latest episode of PESPod – the podcast of the European Network of Public Employment Services (PES Network) - explores the impact and transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) on PES. In this episode, host David Poyser is joined by two guests to discuss how PES can utilise AI to enhance service delivery, improve operational efficiency, and discuss key learnings and best practices...

The latest episode of PESPod – the podcast of the European Network of Public Employment Services (PES Network) – shines a light on the strides being made in Regional Work Centres across the Netherlands. Maarten Camps, Chair of the Board at UWV, the Social Security and Public Employment Agency of the Netherlands, shares how these new hubs could strengthen the labour market in the Netherlands. In th...

PES Network at 10 years: reflections and looking to the future with Network Chairs past and present.

The Greek PES Changemaker Reflects on Challenges and Opportunities in the Labour Market The latest PESPod episode explores persistent challenges faced by PES in Europe, including skills shortages and the transformative impact of the European Year of Skills, as well as how Greece is tackling the skills challenge and fostering a fair and inclusive labour market. Spiros Protopsaltis, Chairman of the...

PESPod episode 19 shares Network plans and priorities for 2024 and beyondThe latest PESPod episode #19 features the Chair of the PES Network, Caroline Mancel, discussing her background and what hopes and ambitions she has for the Network. Mancel, who assumed the role of PES Network Chair in July 2023, while continuing her role as Deputy Director General of Brussels-based PES Actiris, provides valu...

Lessons from Latvia. In the latest episode of PESPod, we talk to Evita Simsone, head of the Latvian PES (NVA), and HR expert Pārsla Baško about their recent efforts to understand and meet the needs of the future labour market in Latvia. Digital skills, graduate training and employment of recent arrivals from the conflict in Ukraine are some of the key topics discussed. Learn about the findings of...

How behavioural science can help PES help their clients. In episode 13 of PESPod, host David Poyser speaks to Mike Keesman from the Dutch PES (UWV) and Anne-Greet Keizer, Research Fellow at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) on how a WRR report on behavioural science has helped to improve PES performance. Anne-Greet Keizer explains how the WRR’s research highlighted the...

Listen to the latest episode of PESPod to hear from Kristina Fleischer from the Croatian PES (HZZ) and Bernd Becking from the PES Network Secretariat in the European Commission as they share their views based on nearly 50 peer PES assessments between them in the past seven years. Learn about how the heart of the benchlearning assessments is a PES Excellence Model comprised of 31 performance enable...

Interview with Lukasz Sienkiewicz. In the latest episode of PESPod, host David Poyser talks with Łukasz Sienkiewicz, lead author of the November 2022 PES Network survey-based report on PES staff management – challenges in the ‘new normal'. Łukasz Sienkiewicz starts by highlighting the short-term changes caused by Covid-19 in terms of “the re allocation of staff towards the services that were n...

A story of European Solidarity. In the latest episode of PESPod, Johannes Kopf, head of the Austrian PES (AMS) and chair of the PES Network, is joined by Ewa Flaszynska, Director of labour market department at the Polish PES, to reflect on the Ukraine crisis one year on. Their discussions take us from their recollections of the breaking news of the invasion to the current phenomenon of the “waitin...

Why a diverse workforce makes your company better. In the latest episode of PESPod hear how an employer and a PES not only share a vision of the importance of workplace diversity, but how they have worked together to put this into practice. We are delighted that for the first time since its launch, this episode of PESPod welcomes an employer as a guest. Listen to Bjoern Storim, CEO of The Bank of...

A Europe-wide academic expert chats with a national expert about overcoming labour shortageIn episode 12 of PESPod, host David Poyser speaks to Deputy Director Haakon Hertzberg from the Norwegian PES (NAV) about their latest practices and Tina Weber of Eurofound about their latest research in tackling labour and skills shortages – the topic of the recent PES Network Stakeholder Conference 2022. Ha...

One country's positive experience of bench learning assessments with the PES NetworkIn episode 11 of PESPod, host David Poyser speaks to three representatives from the French PES (Pole Emploi) about their valuable recent experiences of undergoing a peer assessment under the benchlearning methodology of the PES Network. Hear Deputy Director-General, Paul Bazin, explain how “enriching” the peer...

How the Swedish PES won an award for its work finding domestic abuseHow Arbetsformedlingen, the Swedish PES, trains its front-line staff to look for symptoms of domestic abuse in an online one-hour training session. When the Swedish PES started this simple scheme to train its frontline staff to look for abuse among their job-seeking clients, they were amazed to find that their own frontline staff...

How collecting data helps people to find jobs. In episode 9 of PESPod, Federico Muniz, Deputy General Director of Statistics and Information and Maria-Jose Arias, Head of Guidance and International Programmes at SEPE, the Spanish PES inspire us with the story of how they developed Send@ – their new data management system aimed at helping jobseekers to find the right jobs or training opportunit...

On Digitalization, a greener economy and the future after COVID.In Episode 8 of PESPod, European Commissioner Nicolas Schmit reflects on the “huge challenges” facing Europe’s labour markets, and the important roles that the PES Network and PES have to play in responding to labour market crises and managing transitions. Commissioner Schmit shares his recollections of the unfolding drama of the Covi...

The Lithuanian PES becoming one. In 2010 the Lithuanian PES were 46 separate organisations, and they merged to become to 11 separate organisations. In 2018, they took a bolder step when those eleven organisations all unified to become just one body. This wasn’t just an 'administrative change'. The number of purely admin jobs massively decreased and in just two years the Lithuanian PES achi...

Though Actiris is a very small PES (it is only responsible for one town - Brussels), many PES observers feel that it has made great strides forward in 'participative management' (a less hierarchical approach to management). One of the Leaders of this approach is Caroline Mancel, their interim Director General, who talks about the process of adopting participative management at in a PES in...

The PES Network has benefited from different experience all over the EU. Before returning to his native Greece, Dr. Spiros Protopsaltis spent 24 years in the US as a Professor and adviser to a US Senator working with the Obama administration before coming back to serve Greece as Head of its PES Network. Greece famously suffers from higher unemployment levels than the EU average, but when Covid hit...

The PES Network has had a very successful bench-learning programme for many years now. This episode has general lessons gained for all PES, from two experts who have travelled all over Europe listening to different PES, writing up reports on how they could benefit from the experience of other PES. The lessons learnt come not simply from discussing strategies with the Head Offices, but also from th...

The strength of the PES network is the way all the different Public Employment Services can learn from each other. Luxembourg, for example, may be one of the smallest countries in the EU but many countries have learnt a lot from its “Future Skills Initiative” where the PES has worked with many employers to retrain employees for future jobs, particularly jobs resulting from digitalisation. This has...

There are many lessons for PES to learn from the pandemic. Digital skills have improved as PES staff across Europe learnt to work from home; the reputation of many PES has improved with jobseekers and employers; rapid coordination with governments was essential to establish crisis management, so across Europe PES can build on this. PESPod was lucky enough to be able to speak to Maarten Camps, Head...