ESCO (European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations) is the European classification of skills, competences, qualifications and occupations. It works like a dictionary that describes, identifies and classifies professional occupations and skills relevant to the EU labour market and education and training. Barcelona Activa has adopted this classification as a reference framework to prepare the job catalogue files, which ensures consistency with European standards, standardisation of information, and ease of use of common data in areas such as guidance, training, and employment.

The Barcelona Activa job catalogue is a digital resource that includes over 1,700 descriptions of different professional profiles in the job market. Each description includes information about job tasks, associated knowledge and skills, job market trends, and hiring data.

The catalogue is an information and career guidance resource for individuals, professionals and organisations who need detailed, up-to-date information on jobs, skills and labour market trends.

According to the ESCO classification, jobs are organised into a hierarchical structure with different levels ranging from the most general categories to very specific jobs. The first levels group together large professional families (such as management, technical, administrative or service staff), and as you progress through the classification, more specific jobs are defined.

Each job within ESCO is placed in this hierarchy and includes useful information such as a job description, the most relevant skills and knowledge required to perform the job, as well as other names by which it may be known. The ESCO groups used to configure the Barcelona Activa job catalogue are:

1. Managers: plan, direct and coordinate company, government and other organisational policies and activities.

2. Professionals: perform tasks that require a high level of theoretical knowledge.

3. Technicians and associate professionals: provide technical support to professionals.

4. Clerical support workers: perform administrative tasks, customer service or document management.

5. Service and sales workers: perform sales, customer service or personal service activities.

6. Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers: perform specialised agricultural and livestock production, forestry or fishery tasks, with a high degree of practical knowledge of the natural environment.

7. Craft and related trades workers: perform technical and manual work requiring specialised skills involving carpentry, electrical work, mechanics, construction or industrial maintenance.

8. Plant and machine operators, and assemblers: operate industrial machinery, transport equipment or production lines, and assemble products or components according to established processes.

9. Elementary occupations: perform basic tasks that require little specific training.

ESCO jobs are organised according to the ISCO-08 (International Standard Classification of Occupations) classification developed by the International Labour Organisation, which provides a hierarchical structure coded up to 4 digits. This hierarchy serves as the basis for ESCO, which adds a level of detail whereby occupations can have up to 5 digits.

• 1 digit – Major group (e.g. 4 – Administrative support staff)
  • 2 digits – Minor group (e.g. 42 – Customer service employees)
    • 3 digits – Minor group (e.g. 422 – Customer information workers)
      • 4 digits – Unit group (e.g. 4223 – Telephone switchboard operators)
        • 5 digits – Occupation (e.g. 4223.1 – Telephone switchboard agent)
           

The employment files contain information from various sources:

• Information from the European Commission (ESCO classification).
• Data published by the Government of Catalonia in the Labour and Productive Model Observatory (OTMP).
• Data extracted from job offers published on various job search websites through a data extraction service (Lightcast).

The information in the Barcelona Activa job catalogue files may come from different sources and apply to different levels of the ESCO classification. This is because data is not always available with the same level of detail for all sections. Therefore, each field in the file uses the most detailed ESCO level available.

Below is a list of the sources for each of the occupation fields in the file and the ESCO digit level used:

* Using Lightcast's vacancy data, Barcelona Activa ranks skills and knowledge and identifies those most in demand by the market during the reference period.

** Using the skills and knowledge data classification carried out with ESCO and the analysis of vacancy data, Barcelona Activa applies an algorithm that identifies occupations that share knowledge and skills with the job.

The labour market information regarding recruitment and vacancies is cumulative data from the last 12 months, which is updated quarterly.