Enhanced employability of men and women through improved skills development and public employment services

Low unemployment rates for young women and men in Cambodia hide the fact that most have to accept any work that is available, often in informality, poor working conditions and working poverty. Their options are limited by lack of access to jobs and employment counselling services, lack of access to labour market data, poor coordination between technical vocational education and training systems across all educational streams, limited involvement of employers and trade unions in TVET, weakness in coordination and governance in TVET system, inadequacy of skills and dysfunctional skills recognition systems, and lack of relevant and quality training responsive to the demand of the labour market. The lack of decent work opportunities in Cambodia, coupled with a demographic bulge in working age population and higher wages on offer in regional destination countries, drives a significant number of young people to migrate for work. The jobs that many young Cambodian workers take up in destination countries are often low-skilled and characterized by informality, including risky sectors for both women and men (such as fishing and domestic work) leaving these young people vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and forced labour. The lack of skills recognition and proper job matching means that on return, young workers are often still unable to access decent jobs in spite of their work experience. At the same time, young workers who seek better employment abroad are often characterized as having low level of skills and with inadequate social protection coverage. The project will build on a series of interventions on youth employment which the ILO has undertaken in recent years. It will build on the ILO-SIDA partnership 2016-2018 KHM/16/52/SWE which supported the implementation of the National Employment Policy by addressing the skills mismatch and reducing discrimination at work, as well as the UN Joint programme on youth employment led by the ILO since September 2017 – KHM/17/50/CHE, in which five UN agencies partner to address the challenges of skills, entrepreneurship and rights at work for young people.

Project symbol

KHM/18/50/SWE

Admin unit

CO-Bangkok

Start date

01/05/2018

End date

31/03/2020

Total allocation

302594

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

302594

Development Partners

Sweden, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

Country/Countries

Cambodia

Outcomes

Outcome 5: Skills and lifelong learning to facilitate access to and transitions in the labour market