Professional Training Matching Job Market Demands Can Increase Employment and Reduces Migration
10/12/2015The citizens’ desire to leave Kosovo has significantly increased since the declaration of the country’s independence. Results of a survey indicate that, at that time around 24 percent of the citizens wanted to leave the country, while now the trend has reached a figure of 37 percent. Another fact is that around 36,000 young people are added to the job market in Kosovo every year, of which only around 8,000 can find jobs.
This and other evidence was presented during debates of a conference “Austrian-Kosovar Day of Job Market 2015,” organized by the UBT and the Austrian-Kosovar Society.
Many panelists, including Andree Russell, representative of the UNDP in Kosovo, UBT Rector Prof. Dr. Edmond Hajrizi, Mimoza Nagavci from the WIFI Albania, Donika Emini from the Kosovar Center for Security Studies, Leon Malazogu from the D4D Institute, Armend Muja, a lecturer at the UBT, Besiana Bicurri from the IOM, and others concluded that a decrease in the level of unemployment in Kosovo and education of adequate personnel for the job market in the country can happen only if young people choose to study the programs matching with the market demands, and not the fields with the big number of graduates already.
The UNDP representative in Kosovo, Mr. Russell, presented a number of facts from the work of the organization he leads, different activities in Kosovo, and other evidence related to the population movement, as well as the citizens’ opportunities for employment.
The UBT rector listed a number of factors and elements that make attractive higher education in Kosovo. He said the UBT, as the largest school of technology in Kosovo and the region, attached a special attention on the provision of academic programs for the students that make them be prepared for competitive job market.
Mimoza Nagavci from the WIFI Albania, which operates in close cooperation with an institution of the same name in Austria, presented the job-related experiences in Albania from the year 2000 onwards. In particular, she referred to the practice of training and certification in specific professions, as is that of a welder, which has shown to be quite an attractive profession even for the women.
IOM representative Besim Bicurri presented interesting information to the conference. Namely, he said only 40% of migrants from all over the world come from the poor countries, while 60% come from the developed ones, mainly people who change their residence in search for a new life.
He also spoke about the revenues that come to Kosovo from the Kosovars living abroad, who, as he explained have been sending around 500 million euros annually in different forms of transfers, plus the money they sent directly to their families, meaning that the amounts of the money that send to Kosovo is much higher than what the official data show.
UBT Professor Armend Muja presented a number of facts related to the attitudes of the country’s citizens with regard to migrating from Kosovo in search for a better life in other countries. He said the percentage of those wishing to leave was quite high, and, interestingly, that not only those unemployed wish to leave but in many cases there people who have jobs and even paid well who do that. Mr. Muja noted that even though there has been some economic growth in Kosovo, new jobs have not been and this has further deepened the gap between the poor and the rich.
Commenting on the issue of unemployment, he noted that officially the unemployment level in Kosovo was 32 percent but the unemployment level among the young people was much higher, reaching even the 60-percent figure. However, he warned that unemployment was linked to a great extend to the education, meaning that the unemployment rate among those without education is much higher than among the citizens with higher education.
He also noted that education should go parallel with the needs of economy by avoiding creation of the personnel for which there is no job market but rather for the profiles of which there is an increased demand.