A meeting with the Prime Minister Ana Brnabic with the representatives of youth CSOs, among which were representatives from BOS was held yesterday, 8th of October in the Palace „Serbia“. The subject of the meeting was the new government measure for youth employment „My first salary“. The program will include 10.000 young people who will have the opportunity to acquire first work experience and improve their employability.

Experts from BOS from program area for Improvement of Employability analyized the program „My First Salary“, on concrete effectiveness of the measure read here. In the previous years, BOS worked on the improvement of legal framework for internships. Internships are EU priority, which needs to be the case with Serbia as well, and regarding it, we gave concrete measures for changes in the Labor Law, highlighted Ivan Topalovic project manager from BOS, on the meeting with the Prime Minister.

Minister of Youth and Sports Vanja Udovicic and president of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce Marko Cadez were present at the meeting, as well. The topics included main problems the youth is facing today when searching for a job, and how to overcome them. The proposal pointed out by representatives of BOS, concerns improving framework for internships and including it in the Labor law, as a measure for harmonization with the EU Standards.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic supported our proposal and initiative, and Marko Cadez added that the Serbian Chamber of Commerce faced similar problems when they wanted to include young people in internships. The conclusion is that the continuous work needs to be done to tackle these problems, and that „My First Salary“ is just one of measure towards systemic solutions for improvement of youth employability.

Representatives from other CSOs pointed out the importance of youth returning to the country, improvement of youth entrepreneurship, as well as including the dual education at the universities.

For the program „My First Salary“ 8537 companies were registered which fulfill the necessary conditions, and they offered over 22 thousands jobs. Young people can start registering for the program as of yesterday, 8.10.2020. Registration will last until November, the 8th 2020.

Team for Improvement of Employability has been working for years on overcoming the obstacles young people face during the transition from the education system to the labor market.