Iain Walsh: It is important for entrepreneurs to participate in employment promotion programs

On Thursday, a round table titled “Youth Employment and Their Inclusion in the Labor Market” was held at the Double Tree by Hilton hotel. The round table was organized by Chevening Alumni Croatia, an association of British scholarship holders who completed postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom, and the British Embassy in collaboration with the Ministry of Labor and Pension System.

Welcome speeches were delivered by the British Ambassador Andrew Dalgleish, Ivan Mišetić on behalf of HUP, and Davorko Vidović on behalf of HGK.

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As a speaker, Iain Walsh from the United Kingdom, Director for Labor Market Strategy and International Affairs at the UK Department for Work and Pensions, delivered a speech on British experiences in reducing youth unemployment rates. The United Kingdom has reduced the youth unemployment rate by more than 40 percent since 2010. The round table was an opportunity for Walsh to reveal the measures through which the UK achieved these results.

He took the opportunity to highlight that despite high employment, productivity and wage levels have stagnated across the UK, which he pointed out as a significant challenge for his ministry. Among the measures used by the relevant UK ministry, he emphasized short courses aimed at mastering essential skills, as any prolonged absence from the labor market negatively impacts further job finding.

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In addition, he noted that the local program Jobcentre Plus Support for Schools exists as a way to reach young people even before they find themselves unemployed in the labor market. As part of this program, instructors from the ministry visit schools to familiarize young people with the concept of working in the market and to prepare them for the near future. He added that it is very important for entrepreneurs to participate in shaping specific programs for promoting employment since they are ultimately the ones who will be hiring and have the best insight into what kind of employee they will need.

Croatia is not a successful country

– Croatia is not a successful country. Croatia’s GDP is lower compared to the EU average than it was ten years ago, and in this regard, we are unique in the EU. We have neglected the most important resource: people. By this, I mean the systematic neglect of education from kindergarten to higher education, and the key limiting factor of our economy is the lack of adequately qualified workers, Davorko Vidović stated in his opening remarks.

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On behalf of the Ministry of Labor and Pension System, the introductory presentation was given by the Minister of Labor and Pension System, Marko Pavić, who was a British scholarship holder and is also the president of the Chevening Alumni Croatia association. In his presentation, he reflected on Croatia’s efforts to address the issue of youth unemployment.

– With EU funds, we halved youth unemployment from 2013 when the unemployment rate was 50 percent to 22 percent at the end of 2017. Additionally, Croatia has the third highest employment growth rate in the EU at 3.8 percent in 2017, where we had nearly 60,000 more workers in the last quarter than in the same quarter of 2016, the minister stated.

He emphasized that during 2017, there was an average of 193 thousand people registered as unemployed, of which nearly 52 thousand were young people, or 26.8 percent, which is 24 percent less than in 2016.

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– In 2017, about 196 thousand people were employed from the unemployment records, among which over 89 thousand were young people, or about 45 percent. Also, 85 percent of young people were employed based on employment contracts, and 14.2 percent based on other business activities, the minister stated, emphasizing that among them, self-employment was the most significant.

The goal of the round table organizers was to positively present the experiences of two friendly countries and their approaches to solving the problem of youth unemployment through bilateral cooperation.

After the introductory presentations, a panel discussion followed, featuring Minister Pavić, Iain Walsh, and young entrepreneurs Diana Gluhak Spajić from RED FORK and Dominik Tomičević from Memgraph. The main topics of the panel discussion were measures for youth employment, measures for gaining first work experience, internships, and self-employment.