The panelists include:

Artak Mangasaryan, head of the Employment Agency at the RA Ministry of Labor and Social Issues;

Aram Musakhanyan, Partnership and Teaching NGO;

Nune Aghatelyan, Goris Women's Development Resource Center Foundation.

According to Artak Mangasaryan, the number of unemployed people in Syunik does not prevail over that of other regions; moreover, it has decreased as compared with last year. In response to the question whether appropriate research has been conducted to reveal the reasons for the unemployment decrease, the head of the agency admitted that there was not thorough research. However, he pointed out several factors, namely employment immigrants and the removal of unemployment benefits.

Aram Musakhanyan noted that unemployment issues are coupled with poor public awareness. According to him, “employers are not well-informed, they neither trust governmental programs.”

Career orientation is problematic

The panelists agreed upon the poor performance of career orientation programs in Armenia nowadays. Armenians often choose their future specialties because it is recommended by a parent or friend or it is in trend. The current retraining programs are short-term (3 months at best), thus, it would be wrong to expect much of such programs. Mangasaryan believes that an economist cannot become a skillful programmer or language specialist in three months.

There is a need for doctors and teachers in regions. The program of assignment to other localities is designed to compensate those specialists who will agree to work in a locality 30 km away from their residence locality. Artak Magasaryan believes that 50 percent of people who passed the given retraining programs must get employed, and if the other 50 percent is not registered ay employment centers, they are expected to have found jobs.