EU Social Partners launch INTEL Next Generation, a new EU-funded project to tackle labour and skills shortages in private security
Private security plays a critical role in protecting Europe’s supply chains, public spaces, events, and critical entities. While the demand for security services is increasing, the industry faces structural labour and skills shortages. It is key for the sector to attract a young, diverse workforce, and to provide workers with relevant skills that reflect innovative service solutions. The European Social Partners for the sector, the Confederation of European Security Services (CoESS) and UNI Europa, have now kicked off another EU-funded two-year project to analyze whether current training frameworks are future-proof and how the industry can be more attractive to new workers.
In the light of the increasing demand for security services, labour and skills shortages in the sector are a major preoccupation for the European sectoral Social Partners. CoESS and UNI Europa have therefore kicked off “INTEL: Next Generation”, a new EU-funded project to develop solutions to this issue.
According to the previous research project “INTEL: Skills Intelligence for the Private Security Services” (2021-2023), the European private security industry has grown significantly in the past decade in number of workers, diversification of services, and the upscaling of the technical and professional expertise provided. However, according to the research conducted by CoESS and UNI Europa, roughly 48% of security companies struggle to respond to the market demand due to labour shortages. 70% of sectoral Social Partners consider labour and skills shortages likely to persist. And 68% of companies believe that this presents a serious issue for their business in the next 5 years (find more information on www.securityskills.eu).
“INTEL: Next Generation” is an extension of the previous project and takes a deep dive into two of the main identified challenges: future adequacy of training frameworks, and concepts to enhance attractiveness among a young and diverse workforce. With the support of UNI Europa and CoESS’ members in Belgium (APEG-BVBO), Croatia (CSA), Germany (BDSW), Italy (ConFedersicurezza), Romania (RSIA) and the Netherlands (NV), CoESS will conduct research on training systems and curricula in the private security services in all EU Member States. Researchers in the six countries will further run a perception study among apprentices and young workers in the security services to evaluate the industry’s attractiveness and how to match aspirations of workers and adequacy of training systems. The study will look into expectations of young workers in relation to the purpose of the job, working conditions, training, career pathways and the use of technology.
The project results will be published in respective country reports and one EU-level report. The project activities will be accompanied by a large number of Social Partner workshops in participating countries, and a high-level conference for EU policymakers and stakeholders in Brussels, Belgium.
With this second EU-funded “INTEL” project, CoESS and UNI Europa continue to support the exchange of solutions across countries to tackle the strategic challenge of labour shortages to companies, workers, society, and economies. The financial support comes from dedicated European Commission funds for EU Social Partners.
Find out more about the previous INTEL project, its findings, and recommendations at www.securityskills.eu.
Contacts:
Alexander Frank, Deputy Director General, CoESS (alexander@coess.eu)
Mark Bergfeld, Director Property Services, UNI Europa (mark.bergfeld@uniglobalunion.org)