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Improve people's employability to promote access to work, strengthen links with companies, promote employment policies adapted to each territory and prioritize work with groups in the most vulnerable situations. These are the four main objectives included in the Transformation Plan of the Servei Públic d'Ocupció de Catalunya (SOC) promoted by the Government with multiple actions and changes that will be deployed over the next 4 years.
The most notable are the following:
8 Territorial Employment Councils have been established (Barcelona, Camp de Tarragona, Girona, Ponent, Terres de l'Ebre, Alt Pirineu and Aran, Penedès and central Catalonia) made up of the local, economic and social entities of each territory. They will be in charge of identifying needs, planning, defining and executing employment policies, thus promoting a process that will go from the bottom up.
The SOC will finance these territorial strategies with 40 million euros, which will incorporate the programs and actions in the occupational field that will be carried out in the following four years. The SOC will validate them and guarantee financing throughout the period, ensuring economic stability and greater efficiency.
Starting this year and progressively, the Labor Offices will have a space (SOC Empresa) for specific attention to companies. This service will be open to local economic promotion services with a responsible reference person and qualified technical staff. The 'SOC Company' will offer effective and adaptable services and will act proactively with business entities to bring the SOC closer to their needs (profiles, training, etc.).
This year, 230 new counselors will join, professionals in charge of individual tutoring and ongoing advice to job seekers. These incorporations, which involve an investment of 9 million euros, will allow an increase of 50% in the guidance staff (which will comprise approximately 660 people) to better adjust the policies to each one and better work on job profiles. To these 660 people we must add 277 more counselors that the SOC finances and who work in the rest of the entities of the employment system. In total there will be 937 professional counselors.
This single file will be shared by all agents in the employment system, to improve labor intermediation processes. This information will be key to offering personalized placement services and offering professional guidance with proactive proposals for upskilling and reskilling actions tailored to each person and reality of the labor market.
Employment policies will be adapted to certain groups of priority attention to achieve differentiated action, specific to the characteristics of these groups and the development of specific employment programs such as the Action Plan for unemployed people over 45 years of age and long-term, the Qualitat Youth Employment Strategy 2022-2027 or policies for women.
The payment of these aids (for conciliation, travel, accommodation) will be expedited to attract participation in vocational training for certain people and more aid will be included such as:
All these changes will require an initial investment of 5 million euros to develop the software that allows integrated management of information systems and to advance in the opening of digital communication and service channels to citizens, companies and entities. Although in-person attention will be guaranteed, a new space will be created that allows access to all services and procedures and allows interaction with SOC professionals virtually.
