Armenia Labor Market Evaluation and Strategy Assessment, Promoting Jobs in Armenia: Which Labor-Oriented Policy Approaches Are Worth Pursuing?
Excess supply in the Armenian labor market causes high unemployment and underemployment. It depresses wage levels, leaving many employed individuals and their families living in poverty, and leads many of Armenia's most employable people to leave Armenia for jobs elsewhere. Unemployment exists alongside vacant jobs, because of skill shortages. Demand exceeds supply for jobs in, for example, computer-related occupations and in industrial maintenance. The labor market itself is neither efficient nor effective due to missed and non-existent connections between employers, people seeking jobs, and the education and training system that should be preparing people for careers. Many labor market participants have not changed their "Soviet" era attitudes behaviors to ones that are more compatible with a competitive market economy. The poorly functioning labor market creates a drag on the economy. This assessment drew upon information obtained from a large number of interviews and several focus groups. It proposes a menu of options that will contribute to economic growth, job expansion, poverty alleviation and reduction in unemployment. This assessment was prepared by the Global Workforce in Transition Assessment Team.
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