41% of Armenia’s youth is economically inactive and over one half of the inactive labour force (53.8%) are young people with higher education.

This is evidenced in three assessments of Armenia’s labour market, conducted by Save the Children International Armenian Representative Office and World Vision Armenia within the frames of EU4Youth initiative.

According to the research, only around 4% of the unemployed respondents are seeking jobs through the respective state employment offices, and 5% - through non-state employment offices. Around 13.9% of all current students surveyed and 18.1% of all employed young respondents stated that they did not obtain any soft skills, including general practical skills in communication, negotiations, analytics and leadership.  

Though IT and tourism are considered to be developing fields for Armenia’s economy, the research shows that current teaching programs are not fit for private IT and tourism sector standards: the private sector scores for the practical and theoretical knowledge of graduates are below moderate.

Artak Aghbalyan, Head of Vocational Education and Training Department at Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia noted that those assessments have already been shared with the Minister of Education and Science for further discussions.

“I’d recommend to present them to the Armenian government as well, because relevant departments can be given instructions, based on the research recommendations,” he added.

Gonzalo Serrano Del La Rosa, Head of Cooperation Section at the European Union Delegation to Armenia, noted that the results of those long-expected assessments will help gain more thorough knowledge of youth needs in Armenia.

The assessments have also revealed interesting data on motivation of youth to pursue a career in the agricultural sector in Armenia: agriculture sector appears to be not very attractive among youth, notwithstanding the fact that it is the sole sector for the young people from rural communities to find a job. And still, young people need specialization to be competitive even in this sector.

“On the one hand we have the agricultural sector with demand of qualified specialists, and on the other hand we have young people that live in rural areas and seek job. This is the gap World Vision tries to fill through the implementation of its projects”, says Zhirayr Edilyan, World Vision Armenia Director.  

The assessments are available online

Youth-Focused And Gender-Sensitive Labour Market Research (Save the Children in Armenia)

Youth unemployment survey

Survey on identification of skills needed in the agrarian sector (World Vision Armenia)