Matching Skills to Jobs (MSJ)

The labour market in Kosovo is characterised by contradictory realities. On the one hand, there is a high unemployment rate, indicating an oversupply of labour market entrants and job seekers. On the other hand, employers are unable to recruit staff with the required skills and expertise.

These two contradictory labour market realities highlight the lack of an adequate, coherent and labour market responsive VET system. There is a widespread skills mismatch or lack of relevant skills at the level of school leavers, VET graduates, university graduates and other new entrants to the labour market. This is largely a direct consequence of the failure of the (public) VET system, including non-academic higher education. In the short term, employers usually need quick solutions, they need the skilled workers now and cannot wait for national systems to develop and deliver the required profiles, sometimes in the future. This forces private companies and employers into ad hoc solutions, whether through lengthy induction programmes, in-company training, project- and/or NGO-sponsored approaches, or private and fee-paying courses.