The latest and the most comprehensive research on the current situation of skills gaps in European WISEs, including unique insights about the emplyer and employee personas in work integration social enterprises.

The B-WISE project partners are glad to announce you the publication of the “Report on trends and challenges for Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) in Europe – Current situation of skills gaps, especially in the digital area”, prepared by EURICSE, with the support of all the project partners. 

The report aims to contribute to develop a strategic approach (Blueprint) to sectoral cooperation on the skills needed to reinforce the empowering work of WISEs in strengthening the skills of WISEs’ workers and to sustainably tackle the digitalization challenges they face.

Drawing on 27 country fiches, face-to-face interviews and an online survey carried out in the 13 B-WISE partner countries[1], the report analyses the main drivers, features, and development trends of WISEs in the 27 EU Member States and examines skills needs and gaps of WISEs’ workers, in particular regarding digital skills.

The report draws a map of the WISEs sector in the EU and highlights the challenges faced by these organisations to support workers with support needs.

The first chapter of the report analyses the limitations of the labour market and the weaknesses of labour policy measures implemented to support the work integration of workers with support needs. The following chapters deal with the key features of WISEs, their added value, their drivers, and their development patterns.

Chapter 2 analyses integration models and the fields of economic activity of WISEs; Chapter 3 focuses on the presentation of the variety of legal structures of WISEs in the 27 EU countries; Chapter 4 presents the mix of resources WISEs have access to: public, private, monetary and non-monetary; Chapter 5 aims to illustrate the context of emergence and patterns of evolution of WISEs in three groups of countries; Chapter 6 investigates technical and soft skills and related skill gaps for WISEs’ workers (managers, supporters and workers with supports needs); Chapter 7, assesses the state of play of technology, digitisation and digital skills of WISEs in the 13 B-WISE participating countries. Finally, Chapter 8 highlights recent trends and challenges faced by WISEs in the studied countries.

This report will be the basis of the future work of the project partners. Indeed, they are now focusing on the analysis of skills needs for all WISEs workers to then be able to create dedicated curricula for each of them and in the end a sectoral skills strategy!

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[1] B-WISE partner countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.