The FINANCIAL — 40% of young people in Georgia between 20-24 are unemployed in Georgia. This is the largest rate out of the overall 15-65 age population. However 54% of the overall population is occupied with agriculture – according to the latest figures obtained from the national statistics office of Georgia.
As Giorgi Isakadze, President of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises noted, people aged 20-24 can be referred to as recent graduates; ones coming from rural areas to Tbilisi searching for jobs; also people having innovative ideas although with limited access to capital resources.
“There are still a lot of people in Georgia possessing an MBA degree although they’re short of work places,” believes Isakadze.
“One possible way to resolve the issue is to develop private sector businesses especially small-medium size enterprises, at the same time to provide access to cheap credit for those unemployed.
People at this age have great ideas, part of them living in the regions, although they hardly stay there due to the fact that not enough resources are provided for them. Hence agriculture should be the primary focus for them in addition to provision of cheap credit,” Isakadze told The FINANCIAL.
According to National Democratic Institute (NDI) research conducted for July 2010, with the sample size of 2,053 people, 65% of them named unemployment as the most important national issue even over the country’s national interests and Euro-Atlantic integration. In addition to the question – how many of them considered themselves employed – 71% disapproved that to be the case; the research was conducted on the basis of face to face interviews.
It should also be noted that unemployment figures in Georgia are the highest compared to the countries in the region. As said by The Heritage Foundation’s research about countries: Armenia has 6.9% unemployment, Azerbaijan – 6%, Turkey – 12.5 whilst in Georgia the figure reaches 16.4%, the highest in the range.
Employment in Georgia can be classified as people who are self-employed, hired and those having undefined status. Among them self-employed labour takes the largest share, a 64%, majority of whom are occupied with agriculture in rural areas.
The Government very recently took steps to improve the prevailing “very dissatisfactory situation” as the President said. Consequently the Government will allocate an additional 150 million GEL in agriculture. As Saakashvili claimed the goal was to double agriculture production by 2015 which now contributes less than 10% of the country’s GDP.
To reach the projected level of output the Government also plans to create processing plants, agriculture store houses and logistics centers. As stated by the President this will be one of the Government’s steps to fight inflation.
In addition to the Government, partner organizations like USAID support the country’s endeavour to boost agriculture growth; in this direction 37 million USD of investment has been taken, also USAID is building 30 service centres all across Georgia to provide people with access to necessary agriculture technology.
International Finance Corporation, part of World Bank Group, is also launching a series of seminars to help Georgia’s food producers learn how to comply with new food safety requirements, improve food safety practices, and thus boost competitiveness and increase food exports. Seminars will be held all over Georgia.
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