(ILO-Budapest)   Alen Camic and Emir Slatina are both in their thirties. Alen used to work as a mechanic until he lost his job two years ago; Emir holds an MA in mechnical engineering and also became unemployed more than a year ago. The two young Bosnians were among the first beneficiaries of the Support for Local Employment Partnerships (LEP) project, an ILO intervention funded by the European Union to provide vocational training to long-term unemployed and other vulnerable groups.  They both attended a 3-month on-the-job training for CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine programming and operating provided by CEBOS graphic design company in cooperation with the local labour office in Novigrad which is part of Sarajevo City. CEBOS is producing tailor made pieces for the interior design of shops and could not find skilled labour. This is why they were interested to form a local partnership with the labour office, a secondary school, and some other companies in order to qualify long-term unemployed as future employees. Both Alen and Emir were hired immediately by CEBOS at the end of the training.  In fact, all 5 participants from their group got a job after the training, indicating that the on-the-job training fills a void on the labour market by teaching skills that are in high demand in the private sector and immediately increase employability. 

ILO is the implementing agency of the project, which is funded by the European Union with EUR 4 million. Through a competitive call for proposals, ILO has launched 15 local partnerships comprising municipalities, public employment services, employers, educational institutions, companies, and NGOs. A key common feature of all selected projects is that they are based on innovative decentralized approaches agreed on by several partners to solve labour market challenges. 2000 people are expected to participate in the different projects that should contribute to more than 600 new jobs.  Disadvantaged groups, including women, youth, minorities, returnees, internally displaced persons and hard-to-employ persons are being trained for professions in processing industry, agriculture, tourism, information technologies.