While men taking their own share of childcare is common nowadays, childcare-related leave remains overwhelmingly gendered in some parts of our societies. As women with children often face career interruptions that can go up to several years, the gender employment and pay gaps still loom large over the EU labour market. While away from their jobs, it may be hard for women with children to keep up with the newest developments in their field of occupation or skills required to carry out their jobs.

In the effort to support any initiatives helping mothers willing to join employment, ESCO invites its implementers, researchers and other organisations to use the taxonomy for purposes such as skills-assessment, personalised skills training or other skills-based help for career progression. Additionally, in the context of the changing labour market and the growing demand for green and digital skills, ESCO recently published its list of green skills. In the next months, ESCO will also introduce a similar list for digital skills. This is of particular relevance when helping jobseekers in securing future-proof employment.

Moreover, the amount of time women with children in the EU spend on caring responsibilities and household work has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. While this work is unpaid, the skills needed to carry out this work are valuable and essential in many occupations. Soft skills listed in ESCO such as relate empathetically, tolerate stress, attend to detail, or manage time are some of the many examples that mothers should by no means forget to include when filling in their CVs and job applications.

For more guidance on how to create a CV so it reflects the best picture of one’s abilities and competences, we recommend using Europass with its set of online tools for CV creation. Moreover, we encourage all job-seekers, including women with children, to explore what vacancies are available across the EU.  

If you are an ESCO implementer building a product that supports initiatives for skills training of mothers or employment facilitation, please share your story writing at EMPL-ESCO-SECRETARIAT@ec.europa.eu, using our hashtag  #ESCO_EU and joining our online forum at https://ec.europa.eu/esco/forum/.