Youth Employment Forum was held at Jahorina with the participation of representatives of ministries of labour from different levels of government, public employment services and employers. Forum was focused on the reform of the public employment services (“The Reform Package”), modifications of the Labour Law in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its application. Also, the Best Jobclubs in BiH were awarded.
“Large number of public employment services is interested to reform their work through application of the Reform Package, especially in the context of strengthening the counselling function. With this in mind, coordination and the peer review of the entire process is required for successful initiation of the reform“, stated Ranko Markuš, YEP team leader.
David Kramer, deputy Director of Cooperation at the Embassy of Switzerland in BiH, underlined that anywhere in the world, opportunities on the labour market are crucial for young women and men to build their future. The responsibility to make this happen is with education systems, public employment systems, employers, governments, and last but not least with young people themselves. Switzerland contributes to improving such opportunities for young people, by joining the main actors in their respective efforts in the field of education, job intermediation, and job creation.
The basis for the discussion in the main panel was the Analysis of the Practical Application of the FBiH Labour Law. One of the authors, Dina Durakovic-Morankic stated that “the new FBiH Labour Law is, beyond the doubt, an improvement, compared with the previous and it provides for quality norming of the labour relations, significant part of which is already proven in practice”.
The focus of the subsequent discussion was on the practical application of the Law: collective bargaining agreements in FBiH, expiring during this week and the new Labour Law of the Republika Srpska, currently under preparation. In discussion, some of the basic weaknesses of the new legislation were recognized and stressed, especially the lack of bylaws which are the precondition for implementation of the law. It was reiterated that the key indicator for the assessment of the new legislation is to be their contribution to the greater employment.
In the final session of the Forum, the best Jobclubs in BiH are awarded. The recognition for the best Jobclub in RS is awarded to the Jobclub Derventa while the Jobclub Goražde is recognized as the best in FBiH. The Jobclub is group form of counselling of unemployed whose success rate is evaluated through the number of employments. Within public employment services that is within municipal employment bureaus in BiH exist 25 Jobclubs.
