On Tuesday, December 22, a press conference was held at the Media Center on the occasion of the presentation of the research “Youth and Entrepreneurship” conducted through the EU project “OUR COMMUNITY, OUR FUTURE – Toward greater cooperation and youth employability” project for a better understanding of youth unemployment.

The conference was opened by Nevena Nikolić, the coordinator of the youth program of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights, with an introduction about the project and its significance, as well as other project activities. Miloš Stančić, one of the researchers, presented the research methodology, as well as the difficulties that the researchers had encountered during the research.

The results of the research, and the recommendations that were made, were presented by Milica Borjanić, the program coordinator of KOMS.

According to the survey data, the percentage of unemployed young people makes 20% of the total unemployed population. Most young people claimed that one of the main reasons for self-employment is that they could not find a job for a salary, and that they received money to start their own business from family or friends. In addition to the analysis of youth entrepreneurship, the research also contains recommendations for improving entrepreneurship development policies.

The main purpose of this research is to raise awareness of the general public, as well as businesses and young unemployed people, and that it should provide a better understanding of the position of young people in the field of self-employment and identify challenges these young people face. The research resulted with specific recommendations, which will be sent to the Government of Serbia, state institutions and organizations which deal with employment and encourage self-employment. The aim of the research and the presented recommendations is to create better conditions for self-employment of unemployed youth, and to remove obstacles related to the lack of conditions for starting one’s own business. The general goal of the research is to improve the long-term employability of young people in Serbia.

You can download the recommendations from the research in English in PDF format here.

You can find the whole research in Serbian in PDF format here.