10/09/2026
ManpowerGroup Romania was represented by Manuela Draghia, People & Culture Senior Director, at the Skills4Retail partner meeting held in Bucharest on 8 and 9 September, which brought together 30 organisations from 9 European countries under the EU-funded Erasmus+ programme.
Among the Skills4Retail partners is JA Europe, Europe's largest provider of entrepreneurship education programmes, reaching 3.5 million students across 40 countries. Bringing together the public and private sectors, JA Europe delivers practical education in enterprise, entrepreneurship, business and economics to students in primary, secondary and early university education.
Discussions focused on scaling training programmes at national level, closer collaboration with retailers and employers, and the development of the European Retail Skills Alliance, with direct exchanges on employers' real skills needs and on how companies can become involved in training programmes.
For organisations operating in retail, the conclusion of the meeting is a pragmatic one: short, modular courses adapt far better to operational realities — shift work and staff turnover — than longer qualification programmes.
As a global leader in workforce solutions, ManpowerGroup actively supports initiatives that align employers, training providers and educational institutions around the competencies the labour market requires. Preparing the workforce for the demands ahead depends on structured cooperation between industry, education and workforce partners.
A special thank you to JA Romania for making this conversation possible, and to Teta Karampini, Senior Programme Manager at JA Europe, for steering the panel discussion.
