Tackling Youth Employment Challenges: Workshop for Employers’ Organizations

At the workshop organized by ILO Moscow in cooperation with the ITC they shared experience and discussed international instruments and good practices related to youth employment policies and programmes.

The CIS countries are facing similar youth employment challenges because of continuing economic hardships. Difficulties faced by young people in the labour market include underemployment, working long hours under informal and intermittent work arrangements or working below their potential in low paid, low skilled jobs. School-to-work transition is also a serious challenge in the CIS. Against this backdrop, the ILO invites the employers’ organizations to get actively involved in the work and policy debate on youth employment.

The workshop offered the Employers’ Organizations a set of tools that help to prioritize youth employment in national policymaking and devise youth employment strategies at the national and local levels.

The participants learned about dimensions of youth employment globally and in the CIS countries, they discussed how youth unemployment influences business. They also learned how to apply information obtained through the analysis of youth labour market, for problem identification and policy design. Finally, they exchanged good practices and experience in promoting youth employment; and developed a draft action plan to improve the effectiveness of youth employment policies and programmes. An important outcome of the workshop was creation of the employers’ organizations’ digital network on youth employment in the sub-region.
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Finally, the participants discussed the report drafted by the ILO expert and devoted to the corporate good practices for youth employment promotion. The report summarizes enterprise-based practices for young people in selected CIS countries and related challenges as well as suggests policy recommendations.

The participants spoke highly about the workshop results:

“During the course, I identified a number of areas on which I’m going to work upon my return to Uzbekistan”.
(Djamshed Urakov, head of department, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan, Samarkand regional branch)

“In my country I will definitely use the knowledge that I have gained here.”
(Elmira Dunganaeva, General Secretary, National Confederation of Employers of the Kyrgyz Republic)

“Given the key role employers play in job creation, it has been essential to gather the EOs of the CIS for the first ever round table on youth employment, to discuss decent jobs for youth and see how we can cooperate closer to deal with this challenge in a more effective manner”
(Mikhail Pouchkin, chief technical adviser, Partnerships for Youth Employment Project)

This workshop is part of the technical cooperation project, financially supported by the Russian oil company LUKOIL and implemented by the ILO Moscow Office. The project seeks to improve the effectiveness of youth employment policies and programmes in nine countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.