Active Labour Market Measures – a step closer to employment: I Work Again, I Live Again

Due to various circumstances, Zumreta Salkanović stopped working a long time ago, retreated into herself and turned to her family. She completely stopped thinking about working again, although in her early youth, as a semi-skilled seamstress and shoemaker, she was happy to do this job.

At the initiative of the staff of the Branch Office of the Employment Service from Odžak, and based on the measure “Employment of Women 2018”, she accepted a job in her profession in the company Brkić A&A doo Odžak. As expected, everything changed. She met a lot of new people, started talking more, meeting new coworkers, modern technologies and new ways of working and producing. Her friends and the whole family were happy with this positive change. New daily commitments outside the family led Zumreta to change the pace of life and to plan more, both his business and private and social life. Although her re-employment contract lasted only nine months, that was enough for her to firmly decide during that period that she would no longer be unemployed as long as she could. With such a positive approach, she quickly found a new job with a friendly employer in a positive and active environment. Improving active measures through the project “Improving Labor Market Research” is a continuation of the European Union’s support in the field of labor and employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina to combat unemployment. The adoption of new, improved measures will help the services to change the negative statistics of women’s unemployment, offering opportunities that should influence active employment policy and women, like Zumreta, to change their lives.

The Employment Service from Odžak, through the Public Employment Service of the Federation of BiH, received support from the European Union in the assessment and improvement of the active labour market measures for the employment of women through the project “Improvement of Labor Market Research”. The project is funded by the European Union to improve active labour market measures that will increase the chances of the unemployed in the labor market and more efficient spending of public money invested in employment programs.