The World Youth Federation of Croatia points out that the population under the age of 29 should be informed more and in a better way about opportunities available to them, such as Croatian employment measures.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes on the 2nd of March, 2020, as many as 48 percent of young people in Croatia are either entirely unfamiliar or poorly informed about Croatian employment measures, and 64.2 percent are unfamiliar with self-employment measures implemented by the Ministry of Labour and the Croatian Employment Service.
These are the results of a survey conducted by the World Youth Federation of Croatia (SSMH) as part of the Kompas Project – Directing the Future in Your Community. In addition to the results, they presented a proposal for measures for the Strategy on Employment and Self-Employment of Young People of the Republic of Croatia, which was composed by 150 young participants from seven counties.
The most negative results are, of course, in Slavonia…
The Alliance’s brochure points out that Croatia, with 35.5 percent of young people aged 15-29 employed, is ranked fourth from the bottom of European Union (EU) rankings. For the last four years, SSMH has been addressing the issue of young people remaining here in Croatia, starting with the Collaboration Against Apathy – Opposition project, co-funded by the Erasmus + program, which, back in 2017, brought together more than 250 young people in four cities. They discussed the problems they face in society and the potential solutions and measures for the National Youth Programme.
150 young people from seven Croatian counties drafted a proposal for measures for the Youth Employment and Self-Employment Strategy in Croatia.
At the time, research was conducted on the needs of young people, with a focus on the local community, and the results show that unemployment is one of the biggest challenges and problems in Croatia. The need to find adequate solutions and methods for reducing youth unemployment has brought about the Kompas project. Project manager Lucija Kundid points out that statistics show a decrease in unemployment compared to last year, but believes that this is only true if young people leaving Croatia are taken into account.
Through the Kompas project, she says, they have explored young people’s views on employment and self-employment to examine their awareness of incentives, Croatian employment measures and policies and their use in rural and urban areas, and their implementation and general level of efficiency at the local level.
”The survey results showed that almost half of the respondents were either entirely unaware or poorly uninformed about Croatian employment measures, and as many as 64.2 percent were unfamiliar with self-employment measures. This shows that they are not adequately or properly presented to young people. On the other hand, the survey showed that very few employees actually used these measures when getting a job. Young people from Slavonia have the most negative attitude towards its implementation, and the most positive attitudes come from the City of Zagreb and Central Croatia, which is expected given the number of young people emigrating from Slavonia every year, but also because a large number of young people from all parts of Croatia pick up and move their lives to Zagreb,” says the project manager.
Kundid: Statistics show a decrease in youth unemployment, but this is an illusion as many people are leaving the Republic of Croatia.
As a result, within the Kompas project, conferences were held in seven counties – Lika-Senj, Split-Dalmatia, Dubrovnik-Neretva, Karlovac, Bjelovar-Bilogora, Brod-Posavina and the City of Zagreb to introduce young people to active employment policy measures in Croatia and empowering young people to participate in the drafting of proposals for the adoption of the Youth Employment and Self-Employment Strategy.
“We had the greatest interest of young people to participate in the project from Brod-Posavina County, where representatives of the local government and CES were present. In Zagreb, they were accompanied by ministry representatives, which we commend. But in Lika-Senj, there was nobody, which is also a kind of message,” Kundid said.
64.2 percent of young people in the survey admitted that they were not aware of the CES self-employment measures and what the Ministry of Labour is doing.
”With regard to youth misinformation, it’s very important to promote Croatian employment measures at the municipal, city and county levels and to strengthen the cooperation of CES information centres, career counselling centres and educational institutions. The compulsory education of high school students on employment, especially for high school graduates, is important,” said Jure Mihael Slavic, president of the City of Split’s Youth Council.
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