LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR TBILISI ... - LED

5.5. People empower Tbilisi action plan
This direction in the city strategic development will aim at maintaining the city’s business
position on the Georgian market as well as at improving the competitiveness of local
companies and encouraging them to offer more jobs. The activities under the strategy will
promote employment and reduce unemployment as well as they will make local residents
more employable.
Basing on the analysis of Tbilisi workforce market some vital problems have been
recognized: low employment rate, high unemployment rate and a low number of the
unemployed people who choose self-employment. Main activities will focus on
activisation of people who are unemployed or at risk of social exclusion and on
supporting these businesses who create new jobs.
This strategic development aim concentrates mainly on creating jobs for school
graduates because when jobs are difficult to find it is mainly the young people who have
just left vocational schools and have no or little professional experience who are at risk of
long-term unemployment.
The local system of education has become one of the factors generating unemployment
among young people because it does not respond to market requirements. The skills
structure of the workforce does not meet the demand since the system is not flexible
enough and the educational offer does not reflect the development tendencies of the
local business.
Nowadays the employers require practical skills rather than theoretical ones and they
want their future staff to have extra qualifications. Therefore it is necessary for the local
schools to introduce into their curriculum student job placements in order to provide their
graduates with more practical skills, which will make finding a job easier for them. So, it
seems important for the educational organizations of all levels to promote
entrepreneurship among their students.
The activities in this field will contribute to the correlation of needs and expectations of
Tbilisi business with the educational offer of local schools. The projects are also going to
increase the graduates’ competitiveness on the local workforce market.
The objective of this part of the development strategy is to decrease the number of the
unemployed graduates of vocational high schools and universities; to increase the
number of students doing job placements and the number of volunteers in local
companies; to encourage companies to create more job placement opportunities for
students; to improve IT technology level at schools – the beneficiaries of the project –
and to supply them with modern office equipment; to increase the number and improve
the quality of job advisors.