Tatarstan has developed a program to promote employment from the age of 14

The authorities of Tatarstan plan to attract as many young people and teenagers from 14 years of age as possible to work, including at defense enterprises. This ambitious goal is set in the new regional employment promotion program. Officials are concerned that the number of working youth has been declining in recent years, with many choosing to study rather than go to work. Previously, the State Council of the Republic prepared draft amendments to the Labor Code, allowing teenagers from 16 years of age to be employed in hazardous and hazardous industries.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Tatarstan has prepared a new program to promote youth employment. The document is currently undergoing anti-corruption examination. According to official statistics, there are now more than 1 million young people aged 14 to 35 in the republic. At the same time, if the number of young labor force in 2021 was 771 thousand people, in 2022 it decreased to 745 thousand. The number of people employed in the economy aged 15 to 29 years decreased over the same period from 372 thousand to 339 thousand. Human.

“The main factor in the reduction in the number of working youth is the decline in the birth rate in the country in the 90s of the twentieth century,” the program says. “Based on this, since the beginning of the 2010s, there has been a tendency in Russia to reduce the number of young workers.”

In addition, the authors point to another reason: young people increasingly prefer “training in general, secondary vocational and higher education programs” rather than going to work.

The authorities of the republic call youth “the most dynamic part of the labor force”, since they “have increased mobility, potential abilities for rapid learning, and innovative thinking.” At the same time, officials point to limited opportunities “for young people to combine study and work”: the majority do not have work experience when entering the labor market, and employers often complain about the low quality of work of young people. The program also notes “a relatively high, according to expert estimates, level of involvement of young people aged 15 to 24 years in labor relations without proper registration.”

Therefore, the new employment promotion program is designed to simplify the employment of minors aged 14–18 years, to promote the employment of teenagers from “families in a socially dangerous situation.” In the action plan, separate paragraphs indicate “promotion of employment of youth under the age of 35 in agriculture” and “at enterprises of the military-industrial complex.” In addition, the republic will conduct an “information campaign to stimulate labor mobility of youth to priority territories of the Far East and the Arctic.”

The expected result should be a reduction in the unemployment rate of youth aged 15 to 29 years to 7%, and for those aged 15 to 24 years – to 11%. The program does not say what level these indicators are at now.

Against the backdrop of a shortage of personnel in the country, Tatarstan has repeatedly come up with proposals to encourage young people, including minors, to work. So, last year the State Council of the Republic prepared draft amendments to the Labor Code, allowing teenagers from 16 years of age to be employed in hazardous and hazardous industries. The head of the committee, Svetlana Zakharova, admitted that behind the initiative are enterprises such as KamAZ and the Alabuga special economic zone, which want to take in college graduates before they go to work as couriers. At a committee meeting in March of this year, the project was criticized by both social activists and deputies. Some of them said that the proposed amendments entail the exploitation of minors and threaten problems with their reproductive health. It was decided to postpone consideration of the amendments.

In February, at a meeting of the board of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Tatarstan, the general director of the Alabuga SEZ Timur Shagivaleev made a proposal to transfer full-time students to evening studies so that they would have time to work at enterprises during the day. According to his calculations, due to students, the shortage of workers in the republic’s economy can immediately decrease by 200 thousand people. However, experts have noticed that now young people do not strive to work in production, but prefer to work in the IT field, as well as as designers, artists and managers.

“It’s not easy to combine both study and full-time work,” says Shamil Yakupov, president of the League of Students of Tatarstan. “Study takes up almost the entire day, and students are looking for very flexible options, when, for example, they can go out on Sunday, perform some kind of service, and for that get money or work, for example, for three hours. At the same time, Mr. Yakupov calls on employers to create attractive conditions: “It is necessary that students want to work at an enterprise, on a construction site, or in a certain field. We need to provide decent wages, because wages in some organizations are, of course, low.”

Kirill Antonov, Kazan