Uzbek Businesses Told to Employ Youth

A new job-creation scheme in Uzbekistan is intended to draw school-leavers and university graduates into the private sector, though analysts say it will be hard to ensure the system works on the ground.

A decree issued by President Islam Karimov in late July requires small firms and enterprises to offer 20 per cent of vacant positions to students who have left university, college, and lyceum within the last three years.

In return, private businesses will receive various exemptions and privileges.

One-and-a-half million young people graduate from educational institutions in Uzbekistan every year, and many will find it hard to get work. Official data suggest that unemployment is under one per cent, but the World Bank estimates that the figure is closer to 20 per cent.

According to a staff member at Tashkent’s employment office, only one in five of those registered there were finding jobs. He said the new rules would open up opportunities for unemployed young people.

Sherzod, a graduate of Samarkand Law College, said it was impossible even for someone with a degree to get a job unless they had good connections.

Bekzod, a 23-year-old economics graduate in Tashkent, has been looking for a job for about a year and thinks the new rules may offer hope.

“I have no experience. They wouldn’t take me on at the organisations where I wanted to work, but now they’ll have to,” he said. “I will probably find a job now.”

Analysts warn that forcing the private sector to create jobs may not be the right way to go.

“The business sector is ill-prepared to shoulder the additional costs,” one observer said.

A café owner in Samarkand, whose business is likely to be affected by the rules, was similarly pessimistic.

“I have nine people working for me and they’re coping with the work,” he said. “If I have to hire another worker, what will he do? Where I will get the money to pay him? If the authorities start really pressuring me to do it, I will have to sack someone and hire a young person.”

Abdurahmon Tashanov of the Tashkent-based Ezgulik human rights group, says the new rules may encourage corruption.

“Businessmen will report that they’re implementing the decree, but in fact they won’t be taking on any young people. Company managers will bribe officials to provide the documents needed for the reports,” he said.

This article was produced as part of IWPR’s News Briefing Central Asia output, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.