World Bank approves 50 million euros for employment in BiH

The World Bank Board of Directors today approved an IBRD loan of 50 million euros for the Employment Support Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina, aimed at increasing formal employment in the private sector for target groups, starting with young people seeking their first job, the World Bank announced, reports Patria.

Bosnia and Herzegovina faces high and long-term unemployment. Among the unemployed, over 80 percent have been seeking a job for more than a year, indicating deep structural problems in the labor market, with a large portion of the unemployed lacking the appropriate qualifications for jobs offered by employers. Finding a first job in the formal sector is particularly difficult: 67 percent of young people are unemployed, compared to an overall unemployment rate of around 28 percent. Addressing these issues is at the core of the government's reform program, as well as a key objective of the World Bank Group's Partnership Framework with BiH.

- This project will directly contribute to job creation by providing financial incentives for formal employment in the private sector, starting with young people seeking their first job. Equally important is that this project will increase employability, in other words, people's ability to find and keep a good job - said Tatiana Proskuryakova, World Bank Country Manager for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The project has two components. The first, Employment Promotion, will help the governments of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska to expand and increase the efficiency of their active labor market policies and public employment services mediation, in order to increase formal employment in the private sector for selected target groups of job seekers (youth, low-skilled unemployed, long-term unemployed, over 40, women, and other disadvantaged groups). Programs to be supported include wage subsidies, on-the-job training, self-employment, services for the unemployed and employers.

The second component, Management, Monitoring, and Communication Systems, will provide funding to strengthen the management system for monitoring active labor market programs and employment mediation, and to implement an effective communication strategy targeting job seekers, employers, and policymakers. Funding will be provided to strengthen IT systems in order to: (a) enable data exchange between employment services and other institutions; (b) provide online services; (c) monitor services offered to the unemployed and employers; (d) introduce monitoring of employment bureau performance; and (e) monitor and publish labor market trends and the results of active labor market policies.