Specialists for the creative industries: how the state promotes personnel training

The government offers support programs to businesses to overcome the problem of a shortage of qualified personnel and the opportunity to directly influence the training of the right specialists. This was discussed during a roundtable with representatives of the creative industries, which was attended by the heads of the Ministry of Economy and the State Employment Service.

"We understand that the number one problem, not only for creative industries but for all employers, is the lack of qualified workers. Today we have structural unemployment, when there are specialists on the market, there are vacancies, but job seekers and employers cannot meet each other's needs. That is why we have launched the reform of the Vocational Education Centers of the State Employment Service. Businesses can join the supervisory boards of the centers and influence the professions and training courses to ensure that students receive the skills that are currently in demand by employers," said the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister of Economy of Ukraine.

During the event, the leadership of the Ministry of Economy and the State Employment Service presented business support programs, including those aimed at training specialists and improving the situation with staffing in the fashion industry.

"We offer a number of support tools to businesses, including grants for business development - from microgrants of UAH 250 thousand to grants of UAH 8 million. We are also ready to help solve the problem of staff shortages - by training the specialists needed by entrepreneurs, or by upgrading the skills of their employees at vocational education centers or through a voucher program. We provide financial support to businesses that hire internally displaced persons and compensate for the costs of arranging workplaces for employees with disabilities," said Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine Tetiana Berezhna.

One of the possibilities discussed by the central government representatives is to establish cooperation between representatives of creative industries and the Vocational Education Centers of the State Employment Service. According to the director of the SES, the centers have all the necessary facilities for training, qualification, and retraining of workers for the light industry.

"This year alone, 486 people have been trained to work in creative industries at the vocational education centers of the Employment Service. We teach such professions in five of our eight institutions: in Rivne, Poltava, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv. We have an individual approach to each employer and can create a separate educational program for each of them, which is necessary for your production. We can work within the framework of a dual form of education, that is, we give a person a short theoretical part, and then the person undergoes an internship at your production, with subsequent employment. Our centers are equipped with modern equipment and technologies," said Yulia Zhovtyak, Head of the State Employment Service of Ukraine.

The event was held in partnership with the Ministry of Economy, the NGO Business Sector Development of Ukraine and with the support of the USAID Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative (UCBI).