In the course of developments in the labour market the nature of labour force supply and demand is changing. The labour market today meets with the situation with steadily decreasing demand for unskilled labour force and the increasing demand for qualified specialists. Employers need highly skilled professionals and workers, which is reflected in the practice that employers often give preference to the recruitment of candidates for jobs with work experience or excellent working skills. This dictates high standards for vocational schools, colleges and universities’ graduates to have not only good theoretical knowledge but also the minimum standard of practical skills. In the ever changing labour market a person must be able to adapt to the new challenges and changes. One of the possibilities, offered by career consultants, is to develop new or improve the existing skills, which become of the most important prerequisites for effective employment.

The work discusses the most important aspects of counselling, development of practical skills, elements of successful employment of unemployed and the persons of unemployment risk. Career counselling plays an important role to acquire, to develop skills, to retrain or to start the individual activities in career stages. Counselling is oriented towards increasing persons’ possibilities by planning professional activities taking into account labour market conditions and personal preferences.

Work consists of an introduction, three parts, conclusions, recommendations, list of literature and annexes. The first part explains basic theoretical assumptions of professional counselling, promotion of practical skills, and professional counselling skills and education to improve aspects of defining success of employment. The second part describes organization of practical training for the unemployed persons, and their situation after vocational training organized by the Lithuanian Labour Exchange. The results of the investigation of unemployed and the unemployment risk approach for professional counselling services, skills development is discussed in third part. The conclusions and recommendations are presented in the end of the Master thesis.

Raktažodžiai: labour market, unemployment, professional counselling