The National Employment Action Plan for 2020 (NAPZ), adopted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia on December 26, 2019, sets the goals for employment policy with measures and activities, which, in addition to the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans' and Social Affairs and employment agencies, as the main players in the NAPZ activities, should also be implemented by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, civil society organizations, social partners and other institutions. The focus of the NAPZ for 2020 is to improve the normative and analytical framework for labor market needs, to strengthen the capacities of labor market actors, to support regional and local employment policy, to encourage employment and to integrate hard-to-employ persons into the labor market through the implementation of active employment policy measures and to improve the quality of the workforce and investments in human capital.

It is planned to include over 123,000 unemployed persons in active employment policy measures, for which 3,700,000,000.00 dinars have been provided from compulsory unemployment insurance contributions, 550,000,000.00 dinars from the Budget Fund for Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Promotion of Persons with Disabilities and 23,600,000.00 dinars from a direct grant awarded to the National Employment Office from the IPA 2013 program cycle. Also, an amount of 150,000,000.00 dinars to support the retraining has been provided to the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans' and Social Affairs (grants provided by international organizations).  

For some active employment policy measures, the categories of hard-to-employ persons are included in the measure, and when it comes to the measures with non-defined categories, priority is given to unemployed persons without qualifications and low-skilled persons, persons aged 50 and over, persons unemployed for a long period of time or those  seeking job for more than 12 months, especially unemployed persons seeking job for more than 18 months, women, especially women unemployed for a long period of time, young people under 30, especially young women, young people without qualifications and low-skilled persons, as well as young people without work experience, persons with disabilities, the Roma, beneficiaries of financial social assistance and persons with a redundancy status.

Also, active employment policy measures will include unemployed persons from the following categories: young people in orphanages, foster care and adoptive families, victims of domestic violence, victims of human trafficking, refugees and displaced persons, returnees under the Readmission Agreement, single parents, spouses from the families in which both spouses are unemployed, parents of children with disabilities and former offenders. 

Other categories of hard-to-employ persons may be identified in the local employment action plan according to the established situation on the local labor market.

You can download the National Employment Action Plan for 2020 on   http://socijalnoukljucivanje.gov.rs/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Nacionalni_akcioni_plan_zaposljavanja_2020.pdf

Source: Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans' and Social Affairs and Coordination Body