site.btaUnemployment in Under 24 Age Group Down 6.8% in Three Years

111 ECONOMY - YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT - FORUM amplified

Unemployment in
Under 24 Age Group
Down 6.8% in Three Years


Sofia, May 30 (BTA) - Between 2013 and 2016, the unemployment rate in the under 24 age group dropped by 6.8 per cent, from 28.4 per cent to 21.6 per cent, Bulgarian Labour and Social Policy Minister Bisser Petkov said here on Tuesday. He was speaking at the opening of a forum on the implementation of the Youth Guarantee Scheme in Bulgaria.

Petkov said that some 7,300 unemployed young people are registered under the Scheme and their numbers are dropping. Each young person registered with the National Employment Agency offices receives an individual assessment in order to be integrated in the labour market. In 2016 alone, over 40,000 youths found work on the primary labour market and over 24,000 were included in training, subsidized employment schemes, apprenticeship and internship under various programmes, measures and schemes with national and EU funding.

There are intermediaries at each labour office who are trained to provide assistance under the Youth Guarantee Scheme, the Labour Minister added.

According to Petkov, quality education which reckons with labour market demand ensures post-graduation employment, and the education reform targeting the prevention of early school dropout is already bearing fruit. The Minister expressed satisfaction that the European Commission has acknowledged the speedier reforms in Bulgaria in a communication about the implementation of the Youth Guarantee Scheme.

According to him, the main challenge remains the group of young people who neither study nor train or work and are not registered with the labour offices. Over the past three years, their proportion has shrunk by 3.4 percentage points to 18.3 per cent, but a lot of work still remains to be done, Petkov said.

Prof. Dr Pobeda Loukanova of the Economic Research Institute with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences said that an increasing number of people in Bulgaria do not seek a job.

An analysis of the Youth Guarantee Scheme implementation found that fewer young people stay registered with the labour offices for more than four months and the majority manage to find work, but the real problem is how to cover those not in education, employment, or training (NEETs).

Within four months, 35.9 per cent of the young people in the Scheme manage to find employment, apprenticeship or internship or go back in training, compared to 40.3 per cent in the EU-28.

The Scheme involves 14.3 per cent of NEETs in Bulgaria, compared to 37.5 per cent EU-wide. Within six months of leaving the scheme, 23.4 per cent of young people are in employment, apprenticeship, internship or in training, against 35.5 per cent in the EU.

According to Loukanova, in the early years of the Youth Guarantee Scheme the highlight was on finding a job, while now the goals are quality employment with career opportunities, healthy and safe working conditions. PK/PP
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