The title of the conference, which reflects the nature of its content, is “Public Employment Services at the Crossroads: Active Strategies of Public Employment Services to Meet New Market Demands”. The three main themes to be discussed at the conference, first by panels and then in working groups, derive from this starting point:

1. The Public Employment Service (PES) as a provider of new and additional services
2. Implementation of new technologies
3. Organisational flexibility.

The contents of the conference will be completed by a round table, which will summarise and define the basic conclusions and guidelines for the activities of public institutions in the coming period. The general assembly of WAPES will be held after the conference.

Mr. Jože Glazer, Director General of the Employment Service of Slovenia, and two of his colleagues, Mrs. Sonja Pirher and Mr. Joco Klopčič, will attend and actively participate in all the meetings and sessions listed above. Mr. Jože Glazer will be the main speaker or rapporteur at the panel (joint) session of the conference in the first thematic group: public employment services as providers of new services. The title of his paper is: “Trends in public employment services in eastern Europe concerning new services”.

Mrs. Sonja Pirher will participate in the second working group discussion on new technologies, while Mr. Joco Klopčič will chair a discussions in the third working group of the conference on issues of organisational flexibility of public employment services. That the Slovenian delegates should be so active is not surprising, since this merely represents a continuation of intensive involvement by ESS in various WAPES activities over an extended period.

The Slovenian service will use the exhibition accompanying the conference to present its information material in English: annual report, presentation and annual report on CD, a presentation-overview of the service and a leaflet with basic data on the service.