Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth

Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth
Informality and time-related underemployment is especially common 
among young people. Almost half (43%) of youth aged 15–24 in Uzbekistan 
and almost 41% of people aged 25–34 are employed informally, and 85% of 
young people are underemployed. The data on the relation between informal 
employment and level of education suggest a strong correlation between the 
level of education and type of employment. In 2016, only 7.5% of the people 
with higher education were employed informally, and informal employment 
of people with higher education was 3 times lower than among those with 
secondary and professional education (CER and UNDP 2018).
There is a mismatch between skills supply and employment 
opportunities
. Addressing the current and future mismatch of skills demand 
and supply in Uzbekistan is critical to accelerating labor productivity and 
long-term economic growth. Currently, education and skills are not linked to 
market needs. This is especially true of the industry sector, where 1 in every 
2 firms encounters difficulty filling jobs; skills shortage is also prevalent in 
construction, transport and communications, and other services (Figure 3.13). 
The academic qualifications of graduates, especially those from vocational 
institutions, do not match the needs of available jobs. 
The status of competition in the job market is characterized by the Head 
Hunter Index, which measures the shortage of specialists in the labor market. 
The index is calculated as the ratio of the number of candidates (proxied by 
resumes submitted) to the number of open positions for a certain period of 
time. Values from 1 to 4 (i.e., 1–4 resumes submitted per job) usually illustrate 
Source: World Bank (2013b). 
Figure 3.12: Major or Severe Obstacles to Operations as Reported by