Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic caused a significant disruption on European labour market. Companies were declaring workers redundant, and governments had to rely on national job preservation policies to prevent the rise of unemployment and income loss. It became obvious that, with the shift in the labour market and the emergence of new skills and knowledge that were required, it was necessary to focus on education and training, for there was a mismatch between the needs of the economy and the shortage of labour force. The EU’s NextGenerationEU plan was introduced as a strategy to emerge stronger from the pandemic and the Member States will be able to use grants and loans to finance reforms and investments under the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Its component that is based on strengthening the development of science and education system, as well as on lifelong learning should be one of the foundations of Croatia's competitiveness, all the while encouraging the growth of deficient professions, mainly in the form of a scheme called Education for the acquisition of competencies necessary for work through vouchers, that represents a financial instrument for allocating public funds for adult education and is a part of national active labour market policy package.