Young Cypriots` interest in job, education and training opportunities both in Cyprus and in the EU was intense, during a campaign organised by the European Commission Representation in Cyprus, in cooperation with the Department of Labour and Eures Cyprus, to combat youth unemployment.
The campaign ends on Saturday with an awareness event in Nicosia for employment opportunities, education and training in Cyprus and in Europe, aiming to support young people looking for a job, further education or additional training to improve their labour market prospects.
The event will give young Cypriot job seekers the opportunity to obtain information on a range of issues such as employment, mobility projects, education / training programs, youth entrepreneurship and how to improve their curricula, a press release of the European Commission Representation in Cyprus said.
The campaign began with a series of workshops held last November and December.
“During the first phase we organised twelve workshops in which 208 young unemployed persons took part” Thea Pieridou from the European Commission Representation in Cyprus told the CNA. The workshops took place in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos and aimed at improving their employability skills, youth entrepreneurship and digital skills.
“These workshops give young people important skills to help them enter the job market” she noted.
Pieridou said young job seekers showed keen interest during the workshops and some of them have already progressed in implementing their idea and have established their own business.
The second phase lasted four weeks with daily posts on the Representation`s facebook account for all the education, training and employment opportunities offered in Cyprus and the EU.
“Young Cypriots are interested in learning about employment opportunities in Europe, although it is not easy for them to migrate,” Antonis Kafouros from the Department of Labour noted.
Kafouros said that according to statistics there are three fields that currently present a large supply and demand of jobs in Europe and those are the health sector, computing and technology and engineering.
“Our primary objective with this campaign was to get closer to young people, especially young people up to 25 years who are not in employment nor in education or training”, he said.
“Young people do not believe that we can help them” he noted, adding that if they register in the Public Employment Service they can get information about projects, get consultation on various sectors and participate in training programs if needed.
In the last quarter of 2015 youth unemployment in Cyprus stood at 31.7%, decreased by 2.6 percentage points compared with the last quarter of 2014. However, it remains one of the highest rates in the European Union, as during the fourth quarter of 2015 the average unemployment rate among young people in the Eurozone was 22%, decreased by 1.2% compared with the last quarter of 2014.
