The decision-making process which determines employment policy requires appropriate information.
For many years Małopolska has stressed the need to carry out activities which enable it to identify socio-economic problems and adapt education to the demands of the labour market. To satisfy these needs the Regional Labour Office in Kraków launched the Labour Market and Education Observatory of Małopolska project in April 2006.
A pilot project was financed by the European Social Fund (Integrated Regional Development Operational Programme) and the state budget. It finished in December 2007.
The project partners included institutions responsible for monitoring the regional labour market and determining employment policy in Małopolska:
The main objective of the project was to support development of an information base in order to make regional socio-economic policy more effective and adequate to meet demands.
To achieve the goal the Observatory took steps to fill information gaps indicated by regional institutions (research and analyses), to gather, process and make available information on the labour market (The Information Resource Library and a module for a graphic presentation of statistical data), as well as to develop model solutions in information management. The project had an innovative character: in the beginning there were no equivalent structures in the region.
The results of the pilot project formed a basis for the Observatory launched in the Regional Labour Office in 2008. Moreover, our experience was used to establish three other Observatories in Małopolska:
