Montevideo, 19 June 2025 – In a new virtual session organised by the ILO/Cinterfor, together with the State Foundation for Training in Employment (Fundae), a digital tool was presented to facilitate broader access to ESCO, the European Classification of Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations.

With over one hundred participants from various Ibero-American countries, the event was opened by Elena Montobbio, Director of ILO/Cinterfor, who highlighted the significance of this session as a step towards the practical application of ESCO in the design of vocational training programmes and the improvement of labour market integration.

A tool born from practical experience

Yolanda Ponce, Head of Training Coordination at Fundae, explained that the tool was initially developed for internal use, as part of an EU-funded project aimed at classifying company-led training in Spain using the ESCO model. Given the tool’s unexpected usefulness, the team decided to make it publicly available on Fundae’s website, transforming it into a pedagogical and career exploration resource.

Eva Carbajo, Training Technician at Fundae, delivered a live demonstration of the tool, highlighting its intuitive design, relational visualisation of competences, knowledge and occupations, and its two levels of navigation: a simple search engine and a more advanced one ("ESCO in detail").

Some of its key features include:

• A dynamic search engine allowing queries by occupation, competence or knowledge.

• A relational visualisation system that displays how concepts are connected within the ESCO network.

• The ability to explore hierarchies and collections (green, digital, linguistic competences, etc.).

• Practical value for a wide range of users: young people, businesses, training institutions and governments.

From data to accessible knowledge

The tool is built around three core conceptual pillars: knowledge, competences, and occupations, clearly distinguished to support comprehension and professional orientation. A practical example shared by Ponce illustrated how theoretical knowledge (such as traffic regulations) becomes a competence (driving a car) and, in a work context, an occupation (bus driver), highlighting the richness of ESCO’s framework.

The tool was also praised for helping young people identify soft skills based on their everyday activities – for instance, managing social media, translated into a marketable competence.

Future integrations

In closing, plans were shared to expand the project’s scope. Fundae is currently working on linking ESCO competences with both public and company-led training opportunities, with the intention of incorporating interest-based profiling tools to guide users toward learning paths aligned with their abilities and aspirations.

The potential of ESCO for the private sector was also underscored – as a human resources tool, it can support internal skills mapping, training needs analysis, and job role definition.

Access

The tool is available on the Fundae website:

Buscador ESCO