B-Care Project Officer Consultant

The European Union (EU) faces well-documented workforce shortages, worsening as its population ages. Against this backdrop, the aged care sector is forecast to require significant workforce increases, which will not be met through domestic recruitment alone. Promoting effective and right-respecting labor mobility for foreign-born care workers can be part of the solution to these demographic projections and the scarcity of workers. If done ethically, it can also help families in low-income countries move out of poverty. While the skills needed to provide these services are similar across countries, differing qualification systems create a significant barrier to addressing this demand. This essential step remains a cumbersome process that significantly hinders employers' ability to hire internationally. From a policy perspective, changing or regulating such frameworks is a very lengthy process.  The main objective of this project is to support selected EU Member States in addressing workforce shortages in the aged care sector by developing a common competency framework and outlining a structured labour mobility scheme that aligns training and recruitment with sectoral needs. While examples of such frameworks exist for professionals at nursing level, and the specific role will be firmed up during the project, we anticipate focusing on an entry-level occupation such as Health-Care Assistants (HCA), which are in high-demand, offer career progression prospects and require lower training needs. Unlike highly regulated healthcare professions, HCAs do not benefit from EU-wide automatic qualification recognition, making them a practical starting point for a common competency framework. This approach allows for greater flexibility in training and recruitment, ensuring that workforce shortages can be addressed efficiently without unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles. This initiative presents a scalable and cost-effective solution to build mobility that protects the care sector from labor shortage shocks, migrant workers from abusive practices, and both sending and destination governments from migration management hiccups. The project is both timely and strategic, addressing gaps in workforce planning, training alignment, and qualification transparency. The creation of a reference framework and the design of a labor mobility scheme are not only critical deliverables - but they are also steppingstones for longer-term institutional cooperation between partner countries and EU stakeholders in aged care. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES LaMP is seeking a consultant that will assist with research on selected EU MS competency frameworks for HCA professionals, training and coordination mechanisms of partner countries and outline of a potential mobility scheme based on the project’s findings and stakeholders’ buy-in. This includes desk research, stakeholder engagement, workshops, and writing outputs: Conduct secondary research on the HCA credential systems and shortages in selected EU Member States (France, Greece, Ireland, Malta). Build relationships with key stakeholders in the sector including private sector and government actors in both selected EU Member States. Identify gaps between skill requirements of the selected EU MS and training supply, educational capacity and cooperation mechanisms in selected third countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan). Engage in and support workshops and missions with relevant stakeholders to advance coalition building around the testing of the common framework. Outline, produce, and copyedit different work products (including one-pagers, presentations and project reports). The successful candidate will have a deep knowledge of competency frameworks and workers’ credentialing, sound understanding of the care industry, a proven ability to manage client relationships, a propensity to develop consensus-driven initiatives, and will bring out-of-the-box thinking.