Announcement of the conference

The Employment Service of the Republic of Slovenia will prepare the 5^th conference of directors general of public employment services from Central Europe which will take place in Maribor from 26 to 27 September 2002. The participants will be the representatives of public employment services from the eight Central European countries: Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The conference will focus primarily on the exchange of various experience, knowledge, opinions, views and good practice. The guest of the conference will also be Mr. Frank Kavanagh, the representative of the EU Employment and Social Affairs Directorate-General (DG Employment & Social Affairs).

The first day of the conference (Thursday, 26 September 2002) will be focused primarily on presentation of the situations on the labour market in Slovenia and the presentation of current situation and changes in public employment services in the last two years. The first part of the workshop on the topic “Clients' satisfaction in public employment services”, headed by Mr. Jože Glazer, the director general of the Employment Service of Slovenia, will start on the first day as well.

We are aware of the fact that the question of clients' satisfaction is a very comprehensive and multiplex topic and that possible differences appear also due to various social, political and cultural environments. This is also the reason why the discussion should focus above all on the relationship between employment services and job-seekers, employers and other representatives of the publics who co-operate with employment services in various ways both as clients or users of their services. Therefore, great deal of attention will also be paid to planning, identifying and implementing quality standards to achieve satisfaction of PES' clients.

The discussion will continue on the second day of the conference on Friday, 27 September, as well. The participants of the 5^th conference of directors general of public employment services from Central Europe will also agree on future plans, especially on further topics and types of co-operation.