This fascinating Thematic Paper, published 2025 by the European Commission – DG EMPLOYMENT, SOCIAL AFFAIRS, AND INCLUSION,  reviews the evolving role of the Public Employment Services (PES) in the prevention of unemployment through career counselling and upskilling of employees. Helping workers at risk of unemployment to make job-to-job transitions has not been a typical performance objective for PES in most countries but the triple transition challenges – technological (including AI), green, and demographic, present threats to and opportunities for employment, particularly in SMEs where most people work. Thus, it is incumbent on PES as a service of public interest to react and support employees and employers.

Career counselling for employees has not to date been a priority focus for many PES in Europe with some notable exceptions e.g. VDAB’s (Belgium fl.) lifelong guidance offer and career guidance voucher system. Career counselling for employees tends to focus on creating career perspectives, skills appraisal, encouraging further training opportunities, and enhancing more stable employment pathways. Access to provision can be virtual (supporting anonymity), in the workplace, or in PES premises.

Employees have described benefits of career counselling:  changes in task content, occupation or employer; improved match between job content and skills or values, and increased job satisfaction. But such provision is not without challenges e.g. access to such services for employees and employers; perceptions of both employees and employers of what the PES does and whom it serves; fear of employers that career counselling will lead to employees leaving; and the training required for  ‘career counsellors’ in competence-based job-matching, occupational families, and transferable skills that enable job to job transitions.

Engaging employers is an essential part of preventive activities. A key objective is to convince employers to think about job carving (redistributing tasks among employees) or upskilling existing personnel instead of letting them go and hiring new employees from the open labour market. Thus, a new complementary role of ‘employer counsellor’  has been established in some PES e.g. the German PES developed ‘qualification counselling’ for SMEs, where specialised consulting staff support employers’ planning processes, including upskilling, to fill job vacancies with less qualified existing staff.

The paper well describes the challenges of evaluating the effectiveness of such preventive measures (similar to those in the education sector!): what to measure, when, and how!

This refreshing and readable report is highly recommended.