BOJIDAR DANEV, PRESIDENT OF BIA, WAS APPOINTED MEMBER OF THE MANAGEMENT BOARD OF ESCO (EUROPEAN SKILLS/COMPETENCES, QUALIFICATIONS AND OCCUPATIONS)

The president of the Bulgarian Industrial Association, Bojidar Danev, was appointed member of ESCO's Management Board (European Skills/Competences, qualifications and Occupations).

Mr. Danev's appointment to ESCO's Management Board is an official acknowledgement for Bulgaria in general, and for BIA in particular. It was the DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion with the European Commission that invited Mr. Danev to join the managing body of the project.

ESCO is part of New Skills for New Jobs, a joint policy initiative carried out in cooperation between the European Commission and the EU Member States to foster skills development and employability, as well as to contribute to improving the services provided by the European Job Mobility Portal - EURES. The objective is to describe the most relevant skills, competences and qualifications needed for several thousand occupations. Unifying the requirements of particular occupations and positions within the separate member states and developing new services such as Match & Map, which aims to improve the matching of jobseekers to available jobs, shall provide more qualitative services in the labour market at European level.

The European Commission's initiative, ESCO, aims at achieving better monitoring and forecast of the demands for skills, as well as recognition of skills and qualifications acquired outside the EU. This shall reduce significantly the brain drain of highly-qualified migrants to low-paid jobs. The project activities shall contribute to expanding the EU legal framework and the national policies for importing third world countries workers, which shall ultimately result in reducing the skills shortage on the European labour market. Such a flexible approach shall help meet the future workforce demands by reinforcing cooperation with third countries with regard to skills recognition and information exchange about the labour market demands.   

Additional information about ESCO can be obtained from the attachments below.