Today, society is undergoing a transformation of unprecedented magnitude and speed, affecting all spheres of economic and social life. Growing globalisation and rapid technological change, particularly in information and communications, has created a highly competitive international market. The answers depend on the approach taken to boost employability and on the set of economic, social and labour policies and practices that will allow it to materialise into real employment opportunities. Employability can be defined as the increased opportunity and capability for constructing the productive skills and competencies that will allow people to find, create, keep, enrich and change jobs, and to obtain fair personal, economic, social and professional rewards in return. In short, employability urges individuals, enterprises and government and society at large to value people and invest quantitatively and qualitatively, in the training, development and productive utilisation of their human potential.
Individuals are the main architects of achieving their own competencies.
Nevertheless, individuals will only invest in their own training according to labour market signals and incentives. Therefore individuals need access to a diversified supply of training, information and guidance services, financial support, recognition of skills' value and certification of competencies formally and informally, and most crucial, good prospects of opportunities and income. But current trends, including industrial restructuring, labour market deregulation and changing skills needs, are eroding the stability and quality of jobs. Hence training becomes decisive in upgrading skills or equipping them for mobility into another situation. No longer can learning be a one-time event at the start of working life, but rather a continuous lifelong process.