The National Trade Union confederation of Moldova (CNSM), in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Moldova, held on Thursday, October 10, 2024, in Chisinau, in the premises of the Labor Institute, an evaluation activity of the project “Youth Rights at Work”. During the current year, 266 young people from 10 districts of the Republic of Moldova have been trained during several information sessions to better understand their rights at work.

Lilia Franț, Vice President of CNSM, who was present at the activity, referred to several sociological data and analyses that show worrying trends in terms of young people’s intentions to leave the country and the situation of young people in the labor market, including the discrepancies between the requirements and expectations of the business environment and the skills that young people graduating from vocational-technical educational institutions acquire.

The Vice President of CNSM noted that the project “Youth Rights at Work” aims to increase the knowledge of young graduates about their rights as future employees and to increase their opportunities to adapt to the requirements of the labor market in the Republic of Moldova.

“Foundation “Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung” Modova has three main objectives that it promotes – democracy, European integration and social justice. In this context, through this project we wanted to contribute to the empowerment of young people in the Republic of Moldova, so that they become part of the system of social justice, and to provide support to young people who are a vulnerable group on the labor market,” emphasized Dan Palihovici, Social Policy Program Coordinator at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Moldova.

During the evaluation activity of the project, several speakers communicated different aspects related to the policies in the field of increasing the employability of young people on the labor market, including: Lucia Argint, Head of Evaluation and Monitoring Section in General Education, General Directorate General Policies in General Education, Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Moldova, Raisa Dogaru, Director of the National Agency for Employment, Daniela Munca-Aftenev, Deputy Head, General Directorate of Education, Youth and Sport of the Chisinau City Council, Irina Covriga, President of MentorMe, Violeta Vrabie, National Project Coordinator of the International Labor Organization in the Republic of Moldova.

It should be noted that within the project, 6 types of leaflets have been developed on the topics of youth rights, updated and edited, distributed as information material to young people at seminars and to stakeholders in the territory, as information material for other young people. A publicity spot was also developed to raise awareness of the risks to which young people are exposed if they accept to work informally.

Statistics on the relationship between young people and the labor market show that only 29 out of 100 young people are in the labor market, while around 67 are inactive, less than half of whom are in education and training, the others are either abroad (23.8%), at home (16%) or in other situations. Also, 2 out of 5 registered unemployed are young people (aged 16-29) and 4 out of 25 are looking for a better life abroad.