2013 Nov. 26
> RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

On 25th November in the premises of the Open University Subotica, a round table discussion for employers and other stakeholders was held within the project MATCHDO with the title: “Matching the demands of the economy with the knowledge and skills offered by the labor market”. 

With the aim to identify the knowledge and the skills lacked by the labor market, most frequent deficiencies arising among the candidates, a group of professionals in the field of human resource, representatives of educational instructions and company managers employing a bigger number of employees or planning to employ a more significant number of people, gathered to exchange views and experiences, to enable the labor market to react on the demands of the employers.

Pavle Budinčević, program director of the Open University Subotica was the first to address the participants:
“The idea is to identify the knowledge and the skills that are necessary for the future candidates. We invited companies to join this round table discussion, that are planning to employ, that will employ several hundreds of people, to see what do they need, what is the situation on the labor market and to train a certain number of trainees through a pilot-training, and to create a platform, which will be the base of future programs”, said Budinčević.

Vladimir Perović, the coordinator of the Project Management Sector at the OUS, introduced the Situation Analysis about the state in the Republic of Serbia in the field of formal and non-formal education, unemployment and macro-economic trends in 2013, which has been made in the frame of this project.

Dr. Galjina Ognjanov, professor of the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade presented the state and the perspectives of the local labor market. Jovica Batas, counselor at the Subotica branch office of the National Employment Service introduced the results of the survey of employers the NES has made in 2013, emphasizing the lacked skills and need for further training of employees within the companies participating in the survey from the city of Subotica.


The discussion at the round table was also joined by the representatives of employers, such as Masterplast YU, Swarovski Doo, Norma group, ContiTech, Printex doo, the representatives of the National Employment Service, representatives of the Local Board for Employment, directors and professors of secondary schools, who have shared their experiences in the field of employment, training of employees, lifelong learning as well as of the importance of non-formal education.


The round table discussion, which is to be organized in 7 other cities in Serbia besides Subotica, gives a chance to present the state on the labor market, to introduce the programs which cover months-long training of unemployed individuals. A pilot training program will be organized and an online platform for training will be created and made available for all those interested, and which will also serve as the base for the development of future programs. The trainings will be organized in February and March next year; the project will be finished during the next year. The most important in this process, especially in the phase of preparation is the stimulate dialogue with employers, who are invited to participate.