The conference is organised in cooperation with the European Commission and will provide information on how Cedefop is assessing the supply and demand of skills in Europe, a subject on which the agency published its first forecast in 2008 on the demand for skills.


This forecast was a major source for the European Commission's Communication, New Skills for New Jobs (December 2008), which aimed to spell out ways to match vacancies with job-seekers and to prevent skills shortages.


The Cedefop forecasts of skills, now finishing the pilot stage, are to publish updated results on the supply and demand for skills every two years, starting in 2010.


Topics for discussion at the conference include:

• how to identify and assess the different types of skills mismatch (for instance, over-qualification, under-education, etc. - including the phenomenon of high unemployment co-existing with numerous job vacancies)
• how employers can best estimate and provide information on their own skill needs
• what the best forms of partnership between educational institutions and enterprises (e.g. traineeships, apprenticeships, involvement of social partners in curricular development) are.