About 15% of Armenia's labour resources underutilized: employment strategy for 2025-2031 presented

YEREVAN, 16 December. /ARKA/. Unemployment in Armenia has both seasonal and structural character, says the employment strategy for 2025-2031 prepared by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

The reason for the latter is the mismatch between demand and supply in the labour market. A significant part of the labour force is uncompetitive and does not have the level of knowledge and professional skills necessary for work that meets the needs of the modern labour market,’ the strategy says.

The target group of the strategy is residents of regional towns, young people out of school and unemployed, women aged 30-39, recipients of family and social benefits.

Strategic goals include:

- Increase high-productivity non-farm employment in communities within regional townships.

- Increase employment of out-of-school and out-of-work youth aged 18-29 through continued skills development, increased opportunities to realise skills and increased productivity.

- Increased employment of women through full and long-term realisation of their potential in the labour market, as well as entrepreneurship development, especially among middle-aged women (30-40 years old).

- Integration of family and social benefit recipients without work restrictions by increasing the efficiency of the social benefit system.

- Transformation of the state employment policy system aimed at developing human capital, increasing high-productive jobs and reducing the mismatch between labour demand and supply.

As a result of the implementation of the strategy, the following results are expected to be achieved by 2031:

- The employment rate in localities, including regional towns, will reach 60.7 per cent instead of 51.2 per cent in 2022.

- The share of young people aged 20-29 who are neither studying nor working will reach 19.6 % instead of 35 % in 2022.

- The labour force participation rate will exceed 60% and the number of employees will increase by 252,000 to reach 1.4 million.

- The employment programme will have a significant impact on the poverty rate, which will fall to 19%.-0-