site.bta Labour Minister Kalfin Sets Youth Employment as Priority During His Term in Office

Labour Minister Kalfin Sets Youth Employment as Priority During His Term in Office


Brussels/Sofia, December 11 (BTA) - Labour and Social Policy
Minister Ivailo Kalfin took part in the Employment, Social
Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council meeting in Brussels
on Thursday, his ministry said in a press release.

Speaking at the forum, Kalfin said that youth employment will be
 a priority for his team in the next years. The goal is to
improve young Bulgarians' quality of life by increasing their
employment. To this end, next year priority will be given to the
 organization of trainings adapted to the labour market's needs.
 The educational and student practices, post-education
traineeships, apprenticeships and training through work (dual
education) will be used as opportunities for facilitating the
transition from education to employment, Kalfin said, quoted in
the press release.

The Labour Minister underscored that one of the big challenges
to the implementation of the National Plan for Implementation of
 the Youth Guarantee in Bulgaria is how to reach the non-active
young people. In October 2014, an agreement was signed with all
interested parties on the activation of people aged between 15
and 24 who neither study nor work and are not registered at the
labour offices.
  
"Youth unemployment is the biggest challenge facing Europe. The
European Commission admits that the Member States have made
efforts in this direction but we still need to accelerate the
reforms in the entire EU so as to accelerate the processes set
as targets in the Youth Guarantee. We also have to improve the
connection between the education systems and the labour market,
because this is a uniform and integral process: from the
education system, trainings and qualifications to the finding of
 traineeships, apprenticeships and lasting employment," Kalfin
said at the meeting.

The Labour Minister expressed Bulgaria's support for the
proposed regulation of the European Parliament and of the
Council on a European network of employment services, workers'
access to mobility services and the further integration of
labour markets within the EU. The regulation proposed by the
European Commission establishes the structure and functioning of
 the European Employment Services (EURES), which currently is
the most visited European job mobility portal.

The key ideas for EURES' reform concern, among other things, the
 improvement of information exchange within the network and the
capacity for reporting on results, with the actual state of the
labour market being taken into view.