Russian Regions Discuss Strategic Action Plans for Youth Employment

On 24-25 October, the Republic of Komi hosted a meeting of six Russian regions to discuss action plans for youth employment promotion.

News | 26 October 2019
The Kaliningrad Region, Komi Republic and the Astrakhan Region submitted for discussion their regional strategies to facilitate access of young people to productive jobs and to their successful transition from school to work. These regional strategic action plans were peer reviewed by the partners from the  Khanty-Mansy Autonomous Region, Republic of Bashkortostan, Republic of Kalmykia and the Federal Service for Labour and Employment (ROSTRUD).

The participants discussed how to achieve greater impact of the employment programmes through implementing these programmes in partnership with governments, employers and workers organizations, universities and vocational educations centres and youth organizations.

Ilya Semyashkin, Minister of Labour of the Republic of Komi, described good practicesbbased on private-public partnerships to facilitate first working experience for young people and at the same time, to further develop their professional skills by providing additional learning opportunities at work place. Now the local public employment service plans  to develop a youth guarantee scheme.

The participants visited Uktha, where the major oil and gas companies are closely working with vocational education centres and universities to overcome the gap between the formal education and the demands of the industrial sector.

Ramiz Azizov, Head of the Astrakhan PES, said that a priority for his region is to support entrepreneurship among young people interested in agro-business. Astrakhan is developing a youth entrepreneurship programme, where young people can participate in developing  agro-value chains as a means of further expanding the key role played by agriculture in economic growth and employment in the region.
 Svetlana Zapankova, Deputy Minister of Labour of the Kaliningrad Region, said that the region has successfully invested in the future of young people by expanding opportunities for school graduates and vocational education services. As enterprises need to attract skilled young job-seekers, regional public-private partnerships are planning to improve the effectiveness of services for young-graduated, such as job-placements, career guidance, work-based learning and first working experience programs leading to permanent jobs.

The meeting was organized within the framework of the ILO Project “Partnerships for Youth Employment in the Commonwealth of Independent States”. Ramiro Pizarro, ILO Moscow Project Manager, stressed that the first project phase has been successfully completed and the next task is to implement innovative pilot programmes and services for youth, enhance existing public-private partnerships, and increase the collaboration among Russian regions based on mutual learning and peer-to-peer policy reviews.