Tackling youth unemployment in focus of government

Azerbaijan, which targets decreasing the rate of unemployment in the country, plans to implement certain measures to tackle certain difficulties occurring in the sphere.

Minister for Labor and Social Protection of Population Salim Muslumov said that providing jobs to a large number of young people, who will rush into the labor market under conditions of demographic growth, is one of the challenges of utmost importance for Azerbaijan.

Addressing the opening ceremony of the Binagadi District Employment Center, Salimov said that the ministry jointly with relevant authorities is currently developing an employment strategy for the next 15 years.

He said that the level of unemployment among youth currently exceeds the average level of unemployment twofold in the country, therefore it is important to bring the figure down to the level of 5 percent.

Salimov said that a strong demographic growth in the country, as well as average level of population growth in the country, which stands at 1.2-1.3 percent, necessitates implementing certain measures, aimed at the elimination of unemployment.

As much as 36 percent of the jobs, provided by the service in the first quarter of 2016, fell to a share of the youth, while the figure of youth participants of vocational training and courses amounted to 60 percent.

The minister also stressed the importance of adopting a law on compulsory insurance against unemployment in the country, saying that a draft project has already got an approval of all relevant enforcement authorities.

Unemployment insurance will be different from the unemployment benefit, which is one of the ways to ensure social protection of the jobless people in Azerbaijan.

Unemployment insurance will allow an unemployed person to get insurance payments over a certain period of time, which are carried out by contributions, made by the same person during his/her official work.

Muslimov said that lack of the law triggers certain problems, mentioning that the financial means allocated from the state budget [15 million manats] for tackling such problems is not always sufficient. Bringing the recent developments in the banking sector of the country as an example, he mentioned that some 2,700 people earlier employed in the banking sphere appealed to the job centre and were registered as unemployed. The average monthly amount of unemployment compensation in Azerbaijan amounts to 241.8 manats ($151.06).

Muslimov also spoke about the necessity of creating the Labor Fund in Azerbaijan, stressing that appropriate insurance companies should contribute to the establishment of the Fund. To date, the services on compulsory insurance against accidents at production in Azerbaijan are supported by three insurance companies -- Ateshgah Life, Qala Life and PASHA Life.

For last five years, the State Employment Service under the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection has provided employment for about 30,000 people. Most of them are young people. In total, over the past 10 years, the number of people attracted to professional training courses by employment agencies and receiving additional education increased 2.5 times.

The number of workers employed in the oil sector amounted to 34,600 people and 1.49 million people in nonoil sector.

Some 34,400 unemployed people were registered in Azerbaijan as of September 1, 2016, with 37.8 percent of them being women.