The National Trade Union Confederation of Moldova (CNSM) in partnership with the “Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung” Foundation Moldova launched on June 29 in Chișinău, the project “Youth Rights at Work”. The event was held at the Labour Institute. The 20 beneficiaries of the project, young people from trade union organizations, career guidance centres at educational institutions and other institutions, were familiarized with the objectives of the project and discussed the problems faced by young people on the labour market.

In the opening speech, Lilia Franț, the vice-president of CNSM, pointed out that the project “Young people’s rights at work” aims to increase young graduates’ knowledge about their rights as future employees and increase their opportunities to adjust to the requirements of the Moldovan labour market.

Dan Palihovici, coordinator of the Social Policy Programme at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation Moldova, mentioned that, according to the researches and the studies conducted, young people are among the most vulnerable groups of the population in terms of integration into the labour market, and this project aims to provide young people with more support in this process.

The project “Youth Rights at Work” will run in 2 phases this year. The first phase consists of training and further training of a group of young trainers who will be trained in several sessions on the following topics: young people and work; individual employment contracts; social security; working time and rest time; pay; health and safety at work; exercising rights at work.

During the planned sessions, which will take place between June and July 2023, participants will learn more about the individual employment contract, the rights and obligations of the parties in the employment relationship, regulations on working time and wages, the public pension system, the social security system, the legal framework on occupational safety and health, supervision and control of compliance with labour law, and conflict management at work.

The participants of the sessions will also receive a range of information materials, including a training toolkit for trainers in the form of a guide, applied at international level, in line with International Labour Organisation recommendations.

The second phase (implementation period: September-October) consists of organizing and conducting training seminars for graduate students from four educational institutions (at least 50 people from the educational institution). Young trainers under the supervision of an expert will conduct the present seminars. The project will end on 28 November with a wrap-up event.

Statistics on the relationship between young people and the labour market show that only 29 young people out of 100 are in employment, while around 67 are inactive, of which less than half are in education and training, the others are either abroad (23.8%), at home (16%) or in another situation. In addition, 2 out of 5 registered unemployed are young people (16-29 years), and 4 out of 25 are looking for a better life abroad.

For more photos of the event, visit the CNSM Facebook page.