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futures. Understanding the labour market and specific occupations is a significant element
within this, but is frequently not addressed to the necessary depth in training courses:
‘Many people are aware of the growing flexibility of the labour market and the need to be
familiar with that market to provide the best possible help to the client coming to the service.
Few people, however, know enough about the job opportunities and possible openings.’
(Cedefop, Chiousse and Werquin, 1999, p. 58)
Watts (1992) defines ‘information management’ as covering four broad areas:
• education and training opportunities;
• careers and occupations;
• the labour market;
• support services (such as financial support, child-care and helping agencies).
The term ‘information management’ deserves some consideration. Collecting and storing
information has frequently moved towards being a specialist role, particularly where
extensive use is made of web-based facilities. However, the career guidance practitioner
working with clients needs three distinct capabilities: first, a sound grasp of the frameworks
of and broad progression routes through and between education, training and employment;
second, the capability to locate and access relevant detailed information on such
opportunities to meet identified needs; and third, the capability to share this information with
their clients in a way that is appropriate to individual needs and that enhances the clients’
future capability to access information independently.
Many factors serve to inhibit adequate coverage of occupational and labour market
information. Much career guidance is delivered within the education system – in schools,
vocational training institutions, higher education and adult education – often by people whose
own career has progressed from student to teacher without significant experience of other
labour market sectors. Those providing career guidance services within the public
employment services have commonly moved directly from education to public-service
employment without exposure to the commercial and industrial sectors where much
employment is located. Almost all providers of career guidance services work in large
organisations, which differ considerably from the small- and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) that form an important element of the European economy. The small number of
people providing career development services in the private sector may have more
knowledge of this sector, but their services are often available only to limited groups, and
their interaction with public career guidance services may not be extensive.
Public employment services offer services to employers as well as job-seekers, so the
role of their staff in processing vacancies can serve to develop the staff’s occupational
knowledge, and their understanding of the organisations within which vacancies occur. In a
few cases, such knowledge is consciously developed. The degree programmes of the
University of Applied Science of the BA (Germany) include significant labour market studies.
In the Czech Republic, Labour Office counsellors are specifically responsible both for
employment brokerage and for entry to vocational training; in many other instances, the roles
of counselling and of work placement are separated from one another. In Belgium (both
Flemish and French communities), these services are delivered by different divisions within

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