“Every reform faces resistance. It is a long-term process that requires a large-scale professional and financial investment, and the Public Employment Services reform is not an exception – there's a long way to go“
The Youth Employment Project in Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH), funded by the Swiss Embassy (SE) and managed by German consulting company GOPA, has continually, over the past decade supported reform of market institutions. It has managed to develop a momentum of change within public employment services (PES), which has begun to transform the relationship between PES and its registered unemployed. The scale of this change – from PES being considered a benefits-only institution to one, which can also help reintegrate unemployed people into the job market – represents a paradigm shift.
The focus is on improving the work of the Public Employment Services (PES) by introducing new methods of work, which enable them to provide better services to its beneficiaries, primarily unemployed to match them with prospective employers and to encourage self-employment. Additionally, the project contributes to raising general public awareness of labour market issues. The Youth Employment Project (YEP) supported by the Swiss Government and implemented by GOPA, carries out the Public Employment Services reform in order to ensure early intervention through the change of institutional activities, which will prevent the long-term unemployment of persons registered on bureaus – primarily young women and men.
In addition, the Project provides support to young entrepreneurs through an establishment of Local Employment Partnerships in order to open up new jobs and to activate not only young people but all actors in the labour market that will, in turn, improve the overall economic situation. Throughout this process, the “Reform Package” was created. This refers to a set of tools and processes that change and adapt the PES services (focus on target groups – unemployed people and employers) as well as the public's awareness of the PES role in the labour market.
The ‘PES Reform Package’, as it is known, embraces the following core elements:
- Endorsement of Operational Manuals in line with new work model;
- defining institutional goals and identifying indicators to measure them;
- reorganising jobs to meet institutional goals (division between administration and counselling);
- the focusing of mediation services on the ‘most active’ job seekers (initially these are selected from new registrants and people registered for less than 1 year – but excluding those with to find work on their own);
- the re-engineering of processes and procedures to support an efficient job mediation service;
- the introduction of a Performance Management System (PMS);
- the refurbishment of offices to ensure that the premises also support the efficient delivery of the services in accordance with the YEP proposal.
The Reform Package represents a new model of work with PES clients, in line with strategic documents: FB&H PES Job Mediation Strategy 2014, Employment Strategy Republika Srpska 2016-2020 and Action Employment Plan. The Reform Package rollout concept in 9 Cantonal PES (Canton Sarajevo, Tuzla, Herzegovina Neretva, Bosnia Podrinje, Zenica Doboj, Posavina, Una-Sana, Canton 10 and West Herzegovina), PES District Brčko, and PES RS provides genuine evidence of recognition for the value and practicability of adopting a more comprehensive and western European-style PES. Individual counselling and IEPs became the leitmotif of new services in PES that resulted in 67,509 counselled clients and 16.500 employments cumulatively. Eighty-two (82) out of 139 offices/bureaus (59 in RS, 79 in FB&H and Brčko District) or 59%, bureaus are currently implementing the new model of work with clients leading to more efficient administrative services and integration into the labour market through counselling support
To establish more effective services with proactive involvement of PES staff, the project introduces individual and group counselling services for the unemployed. Within these, counsellors devote more time to motivate unemployed assisting them to actively look for jobs.
