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Friday, 31 October 2014

2015 National Action Plan for Employment

The Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted the 2015 National Action Plan for Employment. The most important novelty in the Action Plan for 2015 is a new measure of active employment policy called the "integration of financial social assistance beneficiaries into the labour market". The measure consists of a twelve-month subsidy of a part of salary of employees who are social assistance beneficiaries, in the monthly amount of 10,000 dinars. The employer (from the private sector) is obliged, upon the expiry of 12 months, to retain the employee in employment for another year. It is envisaged that the newly employed social assistance beneficiaries also receive stimulation in the amount of 2,000 dinars per month, in the period of 18 months, but only - as stated in the Action Plan - "depending on the availability of financial resources and possibilities!"

Social assistance beneficiaries are now classified as hard-to-employ; this refers also to Roma who were not classified as a special category of hard-to-employ people in the 2014 National Action Plan for Employment, but were classified as "other hard-to-employ people and particularly vulnerable categories of the unemployed." Refugees and internally displaced persons, returnees under the readmission agreements, victims of domestic violence and trafficking in human beings are again classified as these other people in the Action Plan for 2015.

The measures envisaged for 2015 are again subsidies to employers for the employment of Roma, public works, and also a "package of services for persons without qualifications and low-skilled persons" which, among other things, includes motivational training and inclusion in the programmes of adult primary education and public works. The programmes and measures of active employment policy include two other novelties: Ministry’s participation in the implementation of various strategies (including the Strategy for Improvement of the Status of Roma) and projects (one of them is the project We Are Here Together – European Support for Roma Inclusion).

Compared to the previous year, the table of priorities, measures and activities for the implementation of National Action Plan for Employment is somewhat differently conceived and now does not contain a special section with all measures relating to Roma, but the table still includes the measures such as subsidies for employment of Roma, organisation of motivational training for Roma, especially for social assistance beneficiaries, stimulation of entrepreneurship and employment of Roma through the implementation of educational seminars and training sessions on entrepreneurship.

Neither NAPE for 2014 nor NAPE for 2015 include any specific measures for Roma women, or cooperation with Roma associations and assistance in drafting project proposals for public works where mainly Roma would be engaged, which was envisaged in the plan for 2013.

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