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Making Labour Market Work for Young People in Albania


Young women and men in Albania face challenges with employment. ©FDFA

An estimated 34% of Albania's youth are unemployed or underemployed. The main causes of this situation are low labour demand, ineffective job matching services and lack of skills. Youth employment is a priority and the Swiss-supported project “Making Labour Market work for Young People” - RisiAlbania - responds to this issue by promoting entry into the labour market.

 

RegionCountry Topic Period Budget
Albania
Employment & economic development
Employment creation
SME development
01.07.2012 - 31.10.2017
 CHF  5’100’000
Background

Unemployment remains a serious challenge for Albania's transitional economy. The age group 15-29 year old has high rates of unemployment and unpaid, informal or underpaid jobs.

 
Target

Improved employment and income opportunities for young women and men in Albania aged 15-29
Target group

Young women and men aged 15 to 29; small and medium sized enterprises; job matching companies; media organisations.
Outcomes

1. Businesses in agro processing, tourism, ICT and garment & footwear create more jobs for young women and men (institutional level).

2. Young people increasingly enter into the job market through an effective intermediation with the employers (population level).

 
Results

Results from previous phase:  

  • Created better links to the private sector
  • Improved job-matching services through innovative methods of employment promotion through new media formats and job matching services.
  • Developed skills through ICT online education programmes  
Agency SDC
Credit Swiss cooperation with Eastern Europe
Project Partners Contract Partner
Private sector
Swiss Non-profit Organisation
  • HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation
  • Swiss Private Sector


Other Partners

Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth, national employment centres, businesses, job matching companies, civil society, youth organisations, media.
Projects Coordination

RisiAlbania coordinates with the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth, national employment services and the VET system. It also works closely with other projects supported by SDC, SECO and other donors in employment, entrepreneurship and trade promotion.
Budget Current Phase Swiss Budget CHF    5’100’000 Swiss Disbursement Till Know CHF    4’942’791
Project Phases Phase 3 01.11.2021 - 31.12.2029   (Current Phase) Phase 2 01.11.2017 - 31.10.2021   (Active)

Phase 1 01.07.2012 - 31.10.2017   (Active)

  • DAC Sector OTHER SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES
    INDUSTRY
    Sub-Sector according to the OECD Developement Assistance Commitiee categorisation
    Employment policy and administrative management
    Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) development
    Policy Marker The project takes account of gender equality as a cross-cutting theme.
    The project takes account of democratisation, good governance and human rights as cross-cutting themes.
    The project also supports partner organisation improvements
    Flow Official development assistance (ODA)
    Collaboration Bilateral cooperation
    Finance Type Aid grant
    Aid Type Mandate with fiduciary funds
    Mandate without fiduciary fund
    Tied/untied aid Untied aid
    Project Number

    7F08310

Project Highlights

Creating jobs in the private sector

Through better links with the private sector RisiAlbania so far has enabled 67 new jobs created for young people in ICT and job information portals, among which 30 women. Moreover, through better public and private job-matching, more than 1’000 young people found a job - 55% of whom are women.

RisiAlbania together with the Ministry of Economy, Tourism, Trade and Entrepreneurship introduced for the first time the national competition “RisiTuristike” that encourages innovative tourist packages and services. By diversifying the touristic offers in the cities of Berat, Shkodër and Gjirokastër the project expects a higher number of tourists and longer stays.  This in turn could boost employment and income.

Improving job-matching services

RisiAlbania developed a new practical management model and intelligent job matching system for the National Employment Services that was tested successfully in the regional labour office in Durrës. This model will become a standard working system for all regional labour offices in the country.

Besides the public job-matching service, RisiAlbania supported a private job portal where 30’100 jobs were posted and 363 companies registered. Furthermore, the project stimulated four national media to actively produce and disseminate labour market information to young people and their parents. Over 227 innovative shows, programmes and newspaper supplements targeting 700’000 young women and men and their parents are already published and aired. 

Skills development

7’846 young people, among which 56% women, upgraded their labour IT skills thanks to a newly-introduced ICT online education programme called Almooc, which is supported by RisiAlbania. This initiative provides free access to high quality courses in Albanian language on the latest in-demand IT skills for young people. Leading experts in the IT industry teach the courses while curriculum materials come from schools across the USA.

The Faculty of Journalism of Tirana University introduced a new module on “reporting attractively on the labour market” in its curricula. 22 journalists and 15 students of journalism and communications strengthened their skills on labour market reporting.

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Last update 27.04.2020