Thus, even where vacancy listings are readily accessible, the PES should also offer personal counselling. Current staff resources allow general jobseekers to have a longer counselling session occasionally on a voluntary basis, but more intensive action-plan procedures involving regular contact for up to three months are available only for some particular target groups (see Section 3.3 below). At the same time, the PES workload has tended to increase recently, related to: i) growing numbers of unemployed due to the economic downturn, ii) increases in numbers of social assistance recipients and single mothers in the 2000s, and the desire to improve their difficult situation, and iii) the growth of non-regular employment, which tends to increase labour market flows and has strengthened the PES focus on some groups affected, such as older freeters and dispatched workers.