So far this year, the number of wage and salary workers at the age of 15-28 years old reduced by more than by 7%. Employed youth in Kazakhstan decreased by 4%.
The number of jobs for young people is declining: according to the results of the 3rd quarter of this year, the total number of employees at the age of 15-28 y.o. was 1.5 million. This is 7.6%, or 125.8 thousand people less than in the third quarter of 2016.
At the same time, the number of self-employed young Kazakhstanis also decreased, though less sharply, by 4.1%, or by 21.5 thousand people. The decline in the employment rate among young people occurs against the backdrop of a general decline in the workforce: minus 6.7% compared to the level a year earlier.
Under the current unfavourable economic conditions in the country, young citizens of country start to study harder: on-year the segment of the population at the age of 15-28 years who were not participating in the labour market due to day-long studying increased by 62.4 thousand people, or 5.4%. In the third quarter of this year, there were more than 1.2 million of such young people.
Compared to the 3rd quarter of 2016, the number of employed young people declined in 11 regions out of 16.
The largest decrease in the number of people employed or self-employed took place in the Almaty region (-54.9 thousand people, or 18%), the South Kazakhstan region (-31.9 thousand people, or 10.7%) and Astana (-29.6 %, or 19.3%).
At the same time, in Almaty, on the contrary, the number of employed or self-employed youth increased by 14 thousand people, or by 5.7%. The situation with youth employment is also being corrected in the Zhambyl (+5.3 thousand people), Aktobe (+5 thousand people), Pavlodar (+1.6 thousand people) and West Kazakhstan regions (+1.4 thousand people), however they did not have a significant impact the state-wide situation.
The most dramatically decline in employment for young people occurred in agriculture (-44.7 thousand employees), construction (-31.8 thousand), wholesale and retail trade (-27.9 thousand), transport and logistics (-21, 9 thousand) and in education (-20.4 thousand).
An effective increase in youth employment is one of the main principles of the current approach to by the state to regulate the situation on the national labour market in the framework of the Third Modernisation scheme. In particular, after this year the Programme for the Development of Productive Employment and Mass Entrepreneurship, which has been designed up to 2021, has been launched in the country.
With the aim to promote productive employment of the population and involving citizens in entrepreneurship, the Programme sets the following tasks: training of personnel through technical and vocational education taking into account the needs of the labour market; short-term professional training of workers in the professions and skills in demand on the labour market; training in the basics of entrepreneurship; expansion of microcredit in the countryside and in the cities; assistance in providing employment for the unemployed and self-employed; increasing labour force mobility; creation of a single digital platform for employment.
So far this year, the first results of this programme can already be seen. According to the press service of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population, more than 61 thousand Kazakhstanis have already completed short-term courses while the plan only provided for 26 thousand. These courses provide in the training of unemployed citizens within a short period of time according to demand for professional knowledge and skills in the labour market. Training is conducted through existing colleges, training centres at enterprises, as well as in remote communities through mobile training centers. Participants in the programme are provided with a scholarship, while being paid for travel and accommodation.
According to the Ministry of Labour, out of 23 thousand people who completed training, 9.5 thousand found a job. 70% of them were employed with the assistance of employment centres, while 30% found jobs independently.
Reported by Finprom (Kazakhstan).
