WEC-Europe Calls for Private Employment Services to Be Central to Europe's Green and Just Transition

A transition with profound workforce implications

Europe's labour markets are facing three converging structural shifts: the green transition toward climate neutrality by 2050, rapid digitalisation including AI adoption, and demographic pressures from ageing populations and persistent skills shortages. WEC-Europe warns that without adequate reskilling, up to 71 million jobs could be lost globally, even as green energy alone could generate 18 million net new roles.

The EU has set ambitious targets, up to one million additional jobs by 2030 through the Green Deal Industrial Plan, and two million by 2050 - but WEC-Europe stresses that creating and filling those roles will require a strategic partnership with the private employment services sector.

Three roles, one industry

The position paper identifies three areas where private employment services make a critical contribution. First, facilitating job-to-job transitions, helping workers move between assignments, occupations, contract types, and sectors, including from high-emission industries to emerging green roles. Second, delivering re- and upskilling at scale, with the industry already identifying real-time skill needs and training workers for green professions. Third, supporting businesses through sectoral restructuring, particularly in hard-hit industries such as automotive, through workforce management, outplacement, and career guidance.

Four policy asks

WEC-Europe is calling on EU institutions and member states to act on four fronts: modernise regulation by removing unjustified restrictions on agency work; strengthen public-private cooperation in employment services; ensure equal access to funding, including the European Social Fund+; and promote sectoral social dialogue on the green transition.

"The management of industrial and labour market change is best done at the sectoral and company level," the paper states, underscoring the importance of collective bargaining and social partner involvement alongside top-down policy frameworks.

With the EU Quality Jobs Act in preparation and the Clean Industrial Deal already underway, WEC-Europe is urging policymakers to seize this moment to embed private employment services at the heart of a truly just transition.