Fourth Forum of public employment services held today



The fourth Forum of Public Employment Services, co-organized by the Labour and Employment Agency of BiH and the Youth Employment Project (YEP), with the support of the Swiss Government, was held today.  The Forum dealt with two important topics: formalization of cooperation with 33 representatives of local communities and signing of a Memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the implementation of the Reform Package in public employment services.

Formalizing the cooperation with 33 local communities represents the start of a support programme to local entrepreneurship which is expected to generate more than 500 business ideas in the coming year that will result in establishment of small enterprises.  It is important to stress that thanks to local partnerships and YEP, the entrepreneurs will first undergo a training which will then be followed by mentoring during the realization of their business ideas.

“It is very important to establish synergy between municipalities and employment services. Today we have signed agreements with 33 municipalities and Sarajevo Canton and we will work through these agreements on selection of young people with entrepreneurial propensity, their training and development of business plans and will finance these plans in the final phase”, said Dr. Ranko Markuš, YEP team leader.

The signing of the Memorandum of understanding on cooperation represents the continuation of reforms in public employment services and all public employment services joined the Reform Package after this Forum.

By developing public employment services in the previous period YEP has helped improve the services for job seekers through introduction of new tools such as personalized employment action plans and job clubs as an active labour market measure of group counselling which have provided support to 7 979 young people, of whom 3 508 found jobs.  YEP  has also supported the improvement of infrastructure of local labour offices to provide for the application of the new working methods in appropriate facilities and so far 20 local labour offices have been either refurbished or adjusted, mainly through joint investment of public employment services and YEP.

YEP has also supported the establishment of three social enterprises.  The Entrepreneurial skills acquisition and development program for students involved 250 young people and this program is expected to result in establishing of at least three new enterprises next year.