Pristina, February 1, the report on the implementation of measures to promote the employment of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian community members in 2018, has been presented, which is an evaluation report of the Sector Strategy of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare 2018-2022. In this presentation were present representatives of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, Employment Agency of the Republic of Kosovo, municipal officials and members of civil society.

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the level of achievement of results and the implementation of the activities and measures foreseen in the Sector Strategy of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare 2018-2020 regarding the promotion of employment of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities in Kosovo during 2018. For this purpose, several documents were analyzed, such as the strategic documents, annual reports and data of the relevant institutions for the recent years, with a special focus on those of 2018. Also, through the semi-structured questionnaire, were interviewed the representatives of relevant public institutions and civil society organizations.
Based on the above sources, the report summarizes the achievements of 2018 in the field of promoting employment of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities in Kosovo with a particular focus on the activities, measures and outcomes foreseen by the Sector Strategy of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare 2018-2022.
Various analyzes show that the employment situation of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities is very severe. These communities have a higher unemployment rate and a lower employment rate compared to the Albanian majority as well as other minority communities in Kosovo.

During 2018 progress has been made in some of the activities of this Strategy, although some have been implemented only in part:

• For the first time in the annual report of the Employment and Workforce of EARK for 2017, the reporting of statistics from SIMP has begun to be separately reported for these three communities, which enables the monitoring of the state of indicators as the number and percentage of jobseekers, registered jobseekers for whom employment is mediated, participants in vocational training and other active labor market measures etc.
• Although no quotas have been implemented for the participation of these communities in active labor market measures during 2018, the issue of employment of these communities has been widely addressed in the main policy making document in the field of employment promotion from MLSW, Employment Policy for the Employment Agency of the Republic of Kosovo 2019 - 2021. This document has set annual targets for the inclusion of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities in active labor market measures provided by the EARK in the years to come. However, it should be noted that these targets are lower than those foreseen in the Strategy, aiming at a 6 percent inclusion in 2021, while the Strategy foresees inclusion of 10 percent. Also, during 2018 the attendance was only 2.6 percent. As these targets are the minimum to be achieved, it is recommended that efforts be made to overcome these targets.