Concept paper · Concept paper 25 January 2018 . European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations January 2018 2 ... 2 In this document the term skills will be used to

ESCO Skills Mapping Pilot Concept paper

25 January 2018

European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations

January 2018 2

Contents Purpose of the document .................................................................................... 3 Disambiguation between terms ........................................................................... 3 Building on previous activities ............................................................................. 4 Implementation of the pilot phase ....................................................................... 4

Objectives ...................................................................................................... 4 Step 1: Select the National Skills Classifications ................................................. 4 Step 2: Select the skills ................................................................................... 4

Correspondence to transversal skills ............................................................... 5 Step 3: Create the mappings ............................................................................ 5 Step 4: Assess the results ................................................................................ 7

Expected outcomes ...........................................................................................12 Resources ........................................................................................................12 Documentation and dissemination of results ........................................................13 Annex I: Disambiguation between terms .............................................................14


January 2018 3

Purpose of the document Art. 19 (1) of the new EURES Regulation1 stipulates that the Commission services will

develop a European classification to support interoperability in the framework of

EURES and that the Member States cooperate with each other and the Commission

services for this development. With ESCO the Commission services are developing

such a classification. Once the Commission services adopt the implementing act

according to art. 19(3) it will support the Member States (MSs) to either map their

national occupational and skill classifications to the European classification or adopt

the European classification on a national level.

To ensure this support for MSs that want to map to the European classification, the

Commission services, at the 22nd meeting of the ESCO Maintenance Committee (MAI),

asked the advice of the MAI on how to approach the idea of a mapping pilot on skills2

between national skill classifications and the skills pillar of ESCO and how it can best

serve the Public Employment Services (PES)3. The committee members suggested

using national classifications that are sufficiently different (from very advanced to very

basic) and base the pilot on samples from different sectors.

This document provides an approach for i) mapping between ESCO and national

skill classifications and ii) testing the interoperability among national skills

classifications using ESCO to ensure that ESCO is fit for purpose. It aims at

supporting the PES technically in the implementation of the EURES Regulation. It may

also be useful for other stakeholders that manage classification systems of skills at a

later stage.

Disambiguation between terms One of the business values for PES of mapping their classification to ESCO will be

cross-border skill-based matching between CVs and job vacancies (see Annex 1 for a

list of terms). ESCO offers the possibility of skill-based matching for PES who have a

skill classification regardless of whether these are linked to occupations.

For ESCO to become the common language to exchange information about the labour

market in a uniform and standardized way, the EURES Regulation indicates to map

classifications to ESCO. This means that ESCO becomes a central hub surrounded by

classifications that map to ESCO. This is preferred over mapping different national

classifications directly to each other because i) maintenance of a single mapping to

ESCO requires less complex logistics and ii) it will reduce the number of mappings

required for exchanging data between classification systems; thus cutting costs for

creating and updating mapping tables.

At the same time, we expect that ESCO, serving as a “middleman”, will be less

accurate compared to mapping pairs of classifications directly. The evaluation of the

accuracy is one of the topics we would like to evaluate within the scope of this pilot

(see step 4).

1 Regulation (EU) 2016/589 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 April 2016 on a

European network of employment services (EURES), workers' access to mobility services and the further integration of labour markets, and amending Regulations (EU) No 492/2011 and (EU) No 1296/2013 (Text with EEA relevance). 2 In this document the term skills will be used to refer to skills, competences and knowledge. 3 In this document this term refers to PES coming from countries participating in EURES.


January 2018 4

Building on previous activities The Commission services already coordinated and carried out two mapping pilots both

with the public and private sector:

1. a pilot in the field of occupations between ESCO and national occupational

classifications and

2. a pilot in the field of skills between ESCO and LinkedIn.

Building on this experience and lessons learnt the Commission services intend to carry

out a third mapping pilot, this time between ESCO and national skill classifications.

The purpose of this pilot is to prepare the implementation of the EURES Regulation, as

part of which many MSs will create mappings of skills between their national skill

classifications and ESCO.

Implementation of the pilot phase While the mapping process will be a joint effort between the Commission services and

the MSs, the former one will coordinate the process and guide the MSs. The table

below illustrates the four-step approach and the actors:

Steps Actors

1. Identify the national skill

classifications

Commission services

2. Select the skills subset Commission services

3. Create the mappings Commission services + PES

4. Assess the results Commission services + PES

Figure 1 Mapping pilot four-step approach

Objectives

Through the implementation of the pilot phase the Commission services aim to:

1. Enable the PES self-monitor themselves and learn about the process and the

resource requirements for the creation of the correspondence tables of skills;

2. Understand the requirements for the tools and/or services to support the

mapping process;

3. Understand the level of interoperability that can be achieved between ESCO

and national skill classifications and

4. Understand the level of interoperability that can be achieved among the

national skill classifications during cross-border matching.

Step 1: Select the National Skills Classifications

On 31 November 2017 the Commission services invited the Member States to express

their interest in participating in a skills mapping pilot. Austria, Romania and Sweden

expressed interest. The Commission services accepted the candidatures of Austria and

Sweden and invited Romania to participate as an observer due to lack of a national

skills classification. Belgium, also, expressed interest to participate as an observer.

Step 2: Select the skills

The skills pilot will test the mapping process on a subset of skills. We aim at a

manageable sample size of skills of about 600 concepts. The sample should cover


January 2018 5

sectors which equally represent blue- as well as white-collar workers. To this end, the

European Commission opted for the following ISCO unit groups:

514 Hairdressers, beauticians and related workers and

2432 Public relations professionals

Since occupations in ESCO are tagged with an ISCO code, the European Commission

will collect those ESCO skills which are listed in the occupational profiles under the

aforementioned ISCO unit groups.

The European Commission will liaise with Austria and Sweden on the approach to

identify the skills in their national classifications which fall under the aforementioned

ISCO unit groups.

Preparatory phase

1. The PES provide the data.

2. The Commission services and the PES list the skills linked to the selected

ISCO unit groups

Correspondence to transversal skills

In ESCO each occupation contains a very specific set of skills related to it. We expect

correspondences for these within the framework of each mapping. With respect to

transversal (incl. language) skills, the ESCO occupational profiles do not have direct

links to them but indirect via the transversal contextualised skills.

Since several national classifications and job vacancies list transversal skills, in order

to decrease the risk of loss of information both during the mapping and the

assessment of the results at step 4, we will take into account the ESCO contextualised

transversal skills in the two processes.

Step 3: Create the mappings

Within the course of the creation of the mappings, the PES and the Commission

services will follow the process described below:

Before the creation of the mappings

1. The Commission services transform the selected data into the required data

format: Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS). This is the de

facto standard to create correspondences between classifications.

2. The Commission services import the data into a support tool for

thesaurus alignment.

During the creation of the mappings

3. The tool makes suggestions for mapping concepts.

4. PES experts rework mappings manually, i.e. approve the mapping

relationships suggested by the tool or reject them and select new ones.

5. The Commission services consolidate the discrepancies stemming from

mapping the same pair of concepts from two different perspectives (mapping

and reverse mapping) for each MS.

6. The PES decide on the resolution of the indicated discrepancies.

The Commission services together with the PES will carry out a mapping and a reverse

mapping (two-ways mapping). The mapping refers to the creation of

correspondences from a subset of skills (stemming from the selected ISCO unit

groups) from national skill classifications against the full ESCO. This will be carried out

by the Commission services.

https://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/


January 2018 6

The reverse mapping refers to the creation of correspondences from a subset of the

ESCO skills (stemming from the selected ISCO unit groups) against the full national

skill classifications. This will be carried out by the PES. The main purpose of the

reverse mapping is to validate the initial mapping and to make it more complete, i.e.

to find potential mapping relationships that have not been found during the initial

mapping.

By selecting a specific subset of skills in a national skill classification and searching for

their correspondences in the whole list of ESCO and vice versa, the result will be two

mappings: i) one which comes from the subset of a national skill classification to the

full ESCO and ii) one which comes from the full national skill classification to the

subset of ESCO.

Upon the completion of the mappings, we will compare these in order to reveal

discrepancies stemming from mapping the same pair of concepts from two different

perspectives (mapping and reverse mapping) for each MS. To this end, the

Commission services will calculate the following:

a) Number and % of concepts of the national skill classification subset which

brought correspondences in full ESCO during the national skill classification-to-

ESCO mapping, i.e. how many concepts could the Commission services map.

Figure 2 National skill classification to ESCO mapping

b) Number and % of concepts of the ESCO subset which brought correspondences

in full national skill classification during the reverse ESCO-to-national skill

classification mapping, i.e. how many concepts could the PES map.

ESCO National skill classification

National skill classification ESCO


January 2018 7

Figure 3 ESCO to national skill classification mapping (reverse mapping)

c) Number and % of concepts that fell in the two subsets of skills, i.e. how many

mapping relationships go from subset to subset between the two mappings. In

other words, for how many skills could the Commission services and PES create

matches.

Figure 4 Correspondences in the subsets of the two mappings

d) Number and % of those mapping relationships that are identical in the two

subsets of skills of the same classification deriving from the mapping and the

reverse mapping.

Despite the identical nature of the data, we expect that the different approaches

among the MSs for creating mapping relationships will yield different matches. The

Commission services will consolidate the discrepancies. The PES will decide on the

resolution of the discrepancies (between their perspective of matching and the one

from the Commission services).

Step 4: Assess the results

In order to assess the level of interoperability which has been achieved between

national classification systems after mapping to ESCO, the Commission services and

the PES will simulate real case scenarios.

Preparation for the assessment

1. The Commission services select anonymous non-structured CVs and job

vacancies related to one of the selected sectors (from desk research);

2. The Commission services translate the selected CVs and job vacancies into the

languages of the participant MSs;

3. PES transform the non-structured CVs and job vacancies into

structured data following the fields and the identifiers that they use in their

actual daily work. This includes annotating structured CVs and job vacancies

with the skill concepts in their national skill classifications;

4. The Commission services transcode structured CVs and job vacancies into

ESCO, based on the mappings established in step 3;

5. The Commission services transcode ESCO structured CVs and job

vacancies again into the format of the national system it will be

integrated into, based on the mappings established in step 3.

The Commission services will execute an assessment using the following use cases:

National skill classification ESCO ESCO National skill classification


January 2018 8

1st use case: exchange of CVs between PES

Part 1: Receipt and integration of national and cross-border CVs into a national system

Illustration of the real-life use case:

Francoise is a hairdresser living in France seeking employment in France.

Honza is a hairdresser living in the Czech Republic seeking employment in

France.

The CVs of Honza and Francoise are identical, the only difference is that Francoise

lives in France and Honza in the Czech Republic. We will explore the processing of the

data in their CVs, considering they want to submit their CVs to the French system to

seek employment in France.

In this use case, we have:

a perfect scenario: a French person (in this case Francoise) visits a French

PES to seek employment in France and

a non-perfect scenario: a non-French person (in this case Honza) visits a

PES in another MS (in this case the Czech Republic) to seek employment in

France.

In the perfect scenario: the French PES will transform the non-structured data of

Francoise’ s CV into structured data, according to their usual process.

In the non-perfect scenario: the French PES will receive Honza’s CV from the Czech

PES. In order to achieve the transfer, the Commission services transcode the CV from

the Czech classification to the system of the French PES using ESCO.

The aim of this exercise is to understand how much noise/information loss the ESCO

transcoding introduces in the transfer between PES systems. We will analyse this by

comparing the skill set of CVs in the perfect scenario against the non-perfect

scenario. Although the skills in the CVs of Francoise and Honza were identical in their

original format, due to multiple transcodes, they may not be the same anymore.

Francoise PES

Honza

PES

Transcode CV into

ESCO

Transcode CV into

PES


January 2018 9

Figure 5 Exchange of CVs between PES

In order to understand how much information is lost when carrying out multiple

transcoding, the Commission services will compare:

CV CZ FR PES structured CV FR structured

Figure 6 Comparison of CVs stemming from different PES

1st use case: exchange of CVs between PES

Part 2: Matching of national and cross-border CVs to national job vacancies

The French PES are looking for job vacancies for Francoise and Honza. They have

identified four job vacancies which match their skills. For both Francoise and Honza,

the French PES will match the structured format of their CVs to job vacancies in their

system and provide the % of the matches for each job vacancy.

In order to understand whether identical CVs from various countries yield the same

matches to job vacancies, the Commission services will compare the matches from:

CV FR structured to 4 FR JVs CV CZ FR PES structured to 4 FR JVs

Figure 7 Comparison of matches between identical CVs and job vacancies

Note: The job vacancies will be the same for both candidates.

Structured Non-structured ESCO FR PES

CZ CZ CZ CZ

Structured Non-structured

FR FR

FR CZ


January 2018 10

In order to test the results of the mappings for both ISCO unit groups

(514 Hairdressers, beauticians and related workers and 2432 Public relations

professionals), the same exercise will be executed for four more job vacancies in the

field of PR consultancy. The scenario is exactly the same with the sole difference that

Francoise and Honza are PR consultants and the French PES are looking for relevant

job vacancies to match them with.

2nd use case: exchange of job vacancies between PES

Part 1: Receipt and integration of national and cross-border job vacancies into a

national system

Illustration of the real-life use case:

L’Oreal is a French company which is looking for a hairdresser for their

headquarters in France.

Everis is a Spanish company which is looking for a hairdresser fluent in

French for their headquarters in Madrid.

The description of their job vacancies are identical, the only difference is that L’Oreal

is established in France and Everis is established in Spain. We will explore the

processing of the data in their job vacancies considering they want to hire

professionals from France.

In this use case, we have:

a perfect scenario: a French company (in this case L’Oreal) contacts a French

PES to seek an employee in France and

a non-perfect scenario: a non-French company (in this case Everis) contacts

a PES in another MS (in this case Spain) to seek for an employee from France.

In the perfect scenario: the French PES will transform the non-structured data of the

job vacancy from L’Oreal into structured data, according to their usual process.

In the non-perfect scenario: the French PES will receive the job vacancy from the

Spanish PES. In order to achieve the transfer, the Commission services transcode the

job vacancy from the Spanish classification to the system of the French PES using

ESCO.

The aim of this exercise is to understand how much noise/information loss the ESCO

transcoding introduces in the transfer between PES systems. We will analyse this by

comparing the skill set of job vacancies in the perfect scenario against the non-

perfect scenario. Although the skills in the job vacancies of Everis and L’Oreal were

identical in their original format, due to multiple transcodes, they may not be the

same anymore.

L’Oreal PES


January 2018 11

Figure 8 Exchange of job vacancies between PES

In order to understand how much information is lost when carrying out multiple

transcoding, the Commission services will compare:

JV ES FR PES CV FR structured

Figure 9 Comparison of job vacancies stemming from different PES

2nd use case: exchange of job vacancies between PES

Part 2: Matching of national and cross-border job vacancies to national CVs

The French PES are looking for CVs for L’Oreal and Everis. They have identified four

CVs which match their skill requirements.

For both L’Oreal and Everis, the French PES will match the structured format of the

job vacancy to the CVs in their system and provide the % of the matches for each CV.

In order to understand whether identical job vacancies from various countries yield

the same matches to CVs, the Commission services will compare the matches from:

ESCO

Structured Non-structured

ES ES

ESCO

ES

Structured

FR

Non-structured

FR

ES

FR PES

Transcode JV into

Transcode JV into

PES PES

Everis


January 2018 12

JV FR structured to 4 FR CVs CV ES FR PES to 4 FR CVs

Figure 10 Comparison of matches between identical job vacancies and CVs

Note: The CVs will be the same for both employers.

In order to test the results of the mappings for both ISCO unit groups

(514 Hairdressers, beauticians and related workers and 2432 Public relations

professionals), the same exercise will be executed for four more CVs in the field of PR

consultancy. The scenario is exactly the same with the sole difference that Francoise

and Honza are PR consultants and the French PES are looking for relevant CV to match

them with.

Expected outcomes Throughout the creation of mapping relationships (step 3) and their assessment (step

4), the Commission services and the PES aim at the following:

Mapping platform Creation of mappings

Test accuracy of the algorithm, i.e.

whether the suggested concepts to map

make sense.

Identify best practices.

Receive feedback on user-friendliness of

the interface.

Devise a methodology and understand

how it needs to be adapted to

classification systems of various

granularity levels.

Receive feedback on potential missing

functionalities.

Identify potential improvements of ESCO

and the participant national classifications

on a conceptual level.

Understand the level and impact of

information loss.

Assess the level of interoperability that

can be achieved among national skill

classifications using ESCO.

Assess effort, costs and timings.

Resources In order to create mapping relationships and assess them, the Commission services

and the PES will have to make available a number of resources, as displayed below:

European Commission PES

Experts familiar with ESCO who will create

the mapping relationships and participate

in the assessment exercises.

Experts familiar with their own

classification system who will create the

mapping relationships and participate in

FR ES


January 2018 13

the assessment exercises.

Mapping management platform The experts should, also, become familiar

with the mapping management platform,

developed and offered by the European

Commission for this purpose.

Organization of the webinars/workshops Availability to participate in three

webinars, one workshop (the final one) in

Brussels and additional ad hoc one(s)

online, if need.

Guidance and technical assistance

Reimbursement of travel and

accommodation expenses of the

participants

Documentation and dissemination of results

The Commission services will summarise the results of the skills mapping pilot in a

report which will share with all the PES. The results will be evaluated with regards to

the mapping objectives. The report will be published on the ESCO portal as it may be

useful for other stakeholders that manage classification systems of skills.


January 2018 14

Annex I: Disambiguation between terms

Term4 Explanation

Matching The process of finding corresponding documents.

‘Matching a CV to a vacancy’ means finding CV’s that

correspond to a given vacancy, also known as job-matching.

The term ‘matching’ in this document is used in the same way

as it was defined in the Vision paper of the EURES portal.5

Mapping The technical link between two distinct classifications or the

creation of such a link. Sometimes called ‘alignment’ or

‘correspondence’.

‘Mapping’ is used differently in this document than it was

defined in the Vision paper of the EURES portal, where it refers

to geographically localizing a vacancy. In this document

‘mapping’ refers to aligning classifications.

Tagging Tagging is the process of adding labels to a document or file.

This can be done using a classification: e.g. a vacancy for a

‘car mechanic’ gets tagged with the label/tag ‘car mechanic’.

Now software can recognize the category this vacancy belongs

to, making it more easy to match it a corresponding CV.

Linking Two taxonomies are ‘linked’ to each other when their concepts

have relationships between them other than a correspondence

or translation.

Saying that ‘occupation’ in one classification equals ‘profession’

in another, is an example of mapping concepts. Stating that

the occupation of ‘car mechanic’ is typically working with ‘cars’

is an example of linking two concepts.

Taxonomy

Alignment

When two taxonomies are said to be aligned, this means that

a mapping is available between the concepts of the two

taxonomies. This mapping in its most simple form consists of a

translation table, translating every concept of the first

taxonomy into a concept of the second (and possibly vice

versa).

4 Vision Document: ESCO Mapping Study 2011 – DLV0004, p.11 5 The EURES portal. Vision and strategies for 2010 – 2014.

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Concept paper · Concept paper 25 January 2018 . European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations January 2018 2 ... 2 In this document the term skills will be used to