For the past several years, the Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) as a platform leader for Jobtech Development, has explored linking datasets from various data spaces to support career transitions, developing a coherent data infrastructure for skills supply and lifelong learning, and providing technical tools for digital career guidance. Significant work with the Swedish taxonomy (nomenclature) mapped to ESCO and green competencies has been done. Efforts have been intensified through a government assignment with seven other state authorities, particularly during the European Year of Skills.

Common European Skills Data Space

The common European skills data space will provide a secure, trusted and human-centric infrastructure for sharing, accessing, and reusing skills and education data. This will support ecosystem for innovation, best practices, modernize learning, facilitate labour market research, and reduce data fragmentation. One step further towards a data-driven labour market, facilitating career changes and skill development.

Data from various sources

It will feed into the data space, promoting synergies and scalability of several Commission initiatives such as:

• reference frameworks for qualifications
• digital skills and competence
• the European skills classification (ESCO)
• the European Learning Model, Europass
• EURES

Altogether, it will increase the transparency of information on people’s skills and employers’ needs, qualifications and learning opportunities in relation to the 2020 European Skills Agenda and to the European approach to micro-credentials.

The European Digital Credentials for Learning (EDC)

Thanks to it, individuals can easily share their learning achievements in a secure digital environment, when applying for a job or for further education and training. Since its official launch, many Member States have already implemented the EDC in their digital ecosystem.

The EDC uses:

• the European Learning Model as data format
• this data model aims to establish a single semantic vocabulary for learning in Europe.
• the data model is used at European level to exchange information on qualifications, learning opportunities and accreditation from national sources
• The information can be displayed in Europass
  
  

Application, Benefits and Challenges

A concrete example of the skills data space's potential is its interoperability with European labour mobility initiatives like EURES and EUROPASS. This will enable citizens to access a wide range of tools for matching and guidance services, enhancing their employment prospects.

The main challenges in transforming common European data spaces into valuable assets are referring to prioritizing the deployment and interconnection, engagement levels of participants, and promoting data spaces usage.

JobTech Development’s Role in the Digital Ecosystem

Capabilities and knowledge gained through:

• Extensive collaboration between authorities on developing a coherent data infrastructure for skills supply and lifelong learning
• Ongoing government collaboration on skills supply and lifelong learning, including benchmark learning from OECD projects (Technical Support Instrument Project)
• Expertise in utilizing open data and open-source software to meet labour market needs
• Collaboration and insights from projects related to micro-credentials and their potential application in a Swedish context
• Several years of experience mapping to ESCO and exchanging knowledge with other EU countries in the field of taxonomy

Continuous Collaboration within the Digital Ecosystem

• Continual efforts to develop a sustainable digital infrastructure for the labour market
• Making Arbetsförmedlingen’s open data and open-source code available in compliance with Sweden's Open Data Legislation
• Standardization efforts for interoperability and ongoing work on semantic interoperability, including initiatives for international data sharing
• Sharing of data on unemployment status and the development of labour market data and technology
• Development of ecosystems and partnerships based on business models and data infrastructure
• Favorable conditions for potentially connecting technology using middleware within the EU