European Seminar on Recruitment & Retention in Social Services

On 14th February, the Social Employers and EPSU held a Thematic Seminar on “Recruitment and Retention in Social Services: Improving the sector’s attractiveness”.

On Thursday 14^th February, the Social Employers and the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) co-organised a Thematic Seminar on “Recruitment and Retention in Social Services: Improving the sector’s attractiveness”.

The day started with an intervention by Dr. Lina Salanauskaite, Senior Expert at the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), providing statistical information about gender imbalances in social care. This was followed by practical examples on recruitment and retention in social services from COPAS (Luxembourg), ActiZ (the Netherlands), SNAECSO (France), Sene Cura (Czech Republic) and FP CGIL (Italy). The participants engaged in the process of jointly identifying challenges related to recruitment and retention, as well as the building blocks for what both organisations could jointly develop together in the future.

Concluding the day for the Social Employers, Gregor Tomschizek, President, said “Changing family patterns, more women in employment and an ageing society all increase the demand for social services. This means a huge increase in job creation needs. For social services systems to react and adapt to such trends, employers and unions need to work together towards fair and sustainable solutions. The sector’s social and economic importance also needs to be recognised and valued across Europe, in particular to secure the right funding. If we don’t take action today, our generation will feel the impact in the future.”

Both the Social Employers and EPSU have already agreed to follow-up bilaterally by developing a joint paper on recruitment and retention in social services. This paper will serve as a basis for a future workplan between the two organisations.