Aligning skill formation and mobility strategies with sustainability goals [SKILLS4JUSTICE]

Based on interim findings of Horizon Europe project Skills4Justice, this chapter explores how skill formation and qualifications policies help align skill mobility strategies with sustainability goals and contribute to migration policies responsive to labour market needs. Policymakers recognise the potential of comparability instruments of qualifications in enhancing sustainable labour migration. However, realisation and exploitation of comparability remain strongly compromised by relatively limited use of national qualifications systems, their fragmented character and low trust in formal qualifications by stakeholders. National systems of qualifications are often ill-adapted to deal with qualifications from third countries, and countries introduce cumbersome procedures and requirements that effectively deprive migrant workers of any recognition possibilities. Regional qualifications frameworks and other international transparency instruments have proved inadequate to sustainable labour migration and skills matching, often being used in a fragmented way. Bureaucratisation of recognition of qualifications from third countries reduces the motivation of migrant workers to apply, thus fostering vertical and horizontal mismatches of their skills. Flexible reactions of national qualifications systems to labour and skills shortages often improve migrant workers’ access to recognition of their competencies and qualifications.