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European Skills, Competences, Qual- Social Affairs

ifications and Occupations (ESCO)

Background The aim of ESCO is to: 2019/20 activities of the ISSDC Background
partners in the insurance sector
1. Bridge the communication gap between the education sector and the
ESCO is a multilingual classification labour market, In 1998, the European
(developed in an open IT format) 2. Enable online matching of people to jobs, In February 2019, European social part- Commission decided
3. Enable mobility (cross-border exchange of data, employment services ners in the ISSDC Committee, including
of European Skills, Competences, to launch Sectoral
will be able to exchange job vacancies, CVs and other meaningful infor- BIPAR, signed a Joint Statement on the
Qualifications and Occupations. The mation across the EU), effects of regulatory requirements and Dialogue Committees
European Commission decided to 4. Support education and training in the shift to learning outcomes (ESCO, compliance on employees. In this Joint promoting dialogue
as a standardised terminology, should make it easier to describe how Statement, the social partners note that,
develop ESCO some years ago in order between the social
occupations, skills, competences and qualifications are linked and how while they support the new European
to map the existing “occupational partners (employers
they interact with each other), rules aimed at ensuring a higher level of customer protection in financial
profiles” in Europe with skills, 5. Support skills intelligence and statistics (e.g.be a basis for research, services, such reforms have an impact on operators, customers and finan- and employees) in different sectors at
competences and qualifications for all such as benchmarking and cross-country comparison) cial sector employees who witness disproportionate, burdensome and EU level. The Insurance Sectoral Social
duplicative legal requirements. The social partners warn that information
the sectors of economic activity (i.e. Dialogue Committee (ISSDC), which is
BIPAR and its members provided feedback to the classification of the overload may lead to confusion, resulting thereby in a decision-making
the kind of activities that are carried “financial chapter” when it was created, looking, in particular, at financial process which is difficult and stressful for the customers. Moreover, the an informal working group composed

out, a description of the tasks, what occupations such as insurance broker, insurance sales agent, investment significant increase in regulatory requirements has led to a substantial of organisations representing
adviser, credit adviser and mortgage broker. BIPAR called for better reflec- rise in insurance employees’ workloads. The social partners call, therefore,
they exclude, what the work context employees and employers, was
tion of the sector specific regulation of intermediaries. for employees to be given enough time to assimilate the latest changes in
is, what the necessary and optional established in 1999. The BIPAR EU
legislation and to apply them. In this Joint Statement, the social partners
skills and competences are, if there are The first full version of ESCO was published in July 2017. further highlight that the negative effects have a disproportionate impact Social Affairs Committee, chaired by

regulatory aspects to the occupational on small and medium-sized entities, which contribute significantly to local Mr. Didier Pissoort, takes an active
In spring 2019, the European Commission announced that, in order to economies but face a heavy burden keeping up with constant regulatory
profile). 27 sectors of the economy role in participating in the EU Social
reflect the reality of the labour market it will review ESCO and publish a changes.
(taken from NACE) were identified to new version in 2021. In summer 2019, BIPAR was contacted by the Com- Dialogue in order to protect the
be listed in the ESCO portal, including mission as a “domain expert”, to provide specific expertise and to review The social partners also signed a follow-up to the joint declaration on “the interests of intermediaries. BIPAR
the current references to the sector of insurance/ financial intermediation. social effects of digitalisation” adopted in October 2016. By signing this
“finance, insurance and real estate”. regularly informs and consults its
follow-up, the social partners aim to make employees ready for the digi-
BIPAR responded to the Commission, stating amongst others that for tal age through underlining the importance of continuous training as well members before proceeding with the
insurance intermediation, the main category of “insurance intermediary” as the need for employees to engage in further training opportunities, by signature of any formal statement.
as defined in IDD should be mentioned in the ESCO database and that addressing the issue of work-life balance of employees and by encouraging
as subcategories under “intermediary”, “insurance broker” but also “insur- mobility of employees.
ance agent” should be mentioned. BIPAR also flagged a number of inac- The ISSDC partners meet around 4
curate translations. In view of the ISSDC work programme 2019-2020, the EU social partners times per year. These meetings are
are exploring the possibility of adopting a joint declaration on Artificial the occasion to discuss and analyse
Intelligence (AI) and a joint declaration on gender equality, diversity and topics relevant to the insurance sector
Next steps inclusion. In addition, at their meetings, the EU social partners will continue
to share new developments and initiatives at sectoral and company level at European level. At the meetings, the
BIPAR will continue and follow up this review. in relation to demographic challenges in the insurance sector and digitali- European Commission also regularly
sation. This particularly includes qualifications, lifelong learning, work-life provides updates such as on the state
balance, etc. The next plenary meeting is scheduled to take place in Octo- of play on the implementation of the
ber 2020.
EU Pillar of Social Rights.

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