Ken ROBERTS, Lyazat KOZHAMKULOVA, Aikanysh ABULGAZÝEVA, Kurbanov FIRDAVSÝY, Jochen THOLEN printable version send your friend

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*   * The research on which this paper is based was funded by INTAS, award 04-79-6914.

[   [1]  He is a professor of sociology at the University of Liverpool, E-mail: kenneth.roberts18@btopenworld.com

[    [2]She is a professor and the head of Department of Sociology at the Al-Farabi National University, Almaty.

[   [3] She is the director of Socioinformbureau, a leading NGO in Bishkek.

[   [4] Freelance writer

[   [5] He is the research director of the Institute of Labour and Economy, University of Bremen.

INTRODUCTION

Explaining Youth Labour Market Problems

High levels of youth unemployment and under-employment (in low wage, short hours, temporary or casual jobs) are persistent problems in all CIS countries, throughout East-Central Europe, and much of the pre-2004 EU also. In the new market economies this problem is commonly attributed (wholly or partly) to weak labour demand: it is said (or hoped) that young people will be absorbed into their countries’ workforces as the economies expand. In this paper, ‘weak labour demand’ will be hypothesis 1. One reason for querying this hypothesis is the persistence of substantial youth unemployment and under-employment even in places where the economies are buoyant as in allegedly booming cities such as, for example, Moscow in Russia[1] and Almaty in Kazakhstan (see below). An alternative or complementary diagnosis is that youth unemployment is structural: the result of a mismatch between the output of education and the kinds of knowledge and skills that are now in demand. The solution, it is said, is to cease equipping too many young people with old skills (in mining and engineering for example) and to gear vocational education and training towards expanding business sectors such as ICT, financial and consumer services. ‘Wrong skills’ will be hypothesis 2 in this paper. However, we also entertain and interrogate a third ‘partial Americanisation’ hypothesis, which suggests that hypothesis 2 mistakes the character of the mismatch that has arisen in most parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Education in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union

Every country’s education has unique features but nowadays most countries’ systems approximate to one or the other of two global models, described here as the European and the American. These models have their origins on their respective continents but both are now global. European systems divide secondary age pupils into academic/general tracks on the one side and vocational/technical/professional tracks on the other. The age when this division first occurs varies, as do the proportions on the different tracks and the ease with which young people can switch tracks, but throughout Europe this division is made at some point between age 10 and 16. US education was generically European to begin with but by 1939 most vocational highs had been merged into comprehensive high schools, and most young people were becoming high school graduates at age 18/19.[2] By 1970 college had become the normal next step for high school graduates, and nowadays around two-thirds of young Americans progress from high school into college amid a debate about over-education.[3] For present purposes, which model produces the best results in terms of levels of attainment is not the issue. The crucial point is that the different models of education interface with labour market processes and businesses’ methods of human resource management different ways which are summarised in Table I.

In the European model, pupils/trainees tend to develop occupational identities. Each cohort becomes occupationally segmented prior to entering the labour market proper. Labour markets themselves are occupationalised. When workers switch jobs they normally do so while remaining within their occupations, and career progress is normally within the same occupations. When occupations contract, the vulnerable workers may need to retrain for entirely different kinds of work.

 

 

 

 

 

Table I   Ideal Typical Education-Labour Market Relationships

European model	American model
Vocationally specific skills	General abilities
Occupational identities	Vague but high aspirations
Obtain jobs easily	High unemployment in early career stages
Good fit between jobs entered and qualifications	More mismatches: over-qualified young employees
Immediate income returns on education	Delayed returns
External occupational labour markets	Internal labour markets: on the job training

Derived mainly from Markus Gangl, “European Patterns of Labour Market Entry: A Dichotomy of Occupationalized and non-occupationalized Systems”, European Societies, Vol. 3, No. 4, 2001, pp. 471-494; Barbara M. Schneider and David Stevenson, The Ambitious Generation: America’s Teenagers, Motivated but Directionless, (Boston: Yale University Press, 1999);Mark Szdlik, “Vocational Education and Labour Markets in Deregulated, Flexibly Coordinated and Planned Societies”, European Societies, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2002, pp. 79-105.

 

The American model encourages young people to develop high but otherwise vague and flexible career aspirations. Entrants to the labour market are arranged in a single metaphorical queue by their levels of educational attainment. The best-qualified young people get the best jobs, and the employers who are offering the best jobs get the best-qualified young people. Employers need to provide newcomers with basic induction training and then further training as the businesses’ operations change and as individuals’ careers develop. Typically employees will learn a wide range of skills that their particular employers need. Businesses incentivise their workforces by creating internal labour markets thereby enabling employees to achieve promotion as their skills and know-how make them increasingly valuable to their companies. Employees are likely to face difficulties if a company closes or downsizes since much of their vocational capital will be firm-specific. If forced back onto external labour markets, individuals may find it necessary to accept demotion before beginning to work their way up again.

Europe’s and America’s education systems, labour markets and businesses developed in parallel, each adjusting to the other. In times of rapid change, as during the transformation of the former communist countries, incongruities are only to be expected.

The European and American models constructed above are unrealistically pure ideal-types which are useful because of their ability to illuminate changes over time, and the situations at particular times in any country and region therein, which is how the models are used here. The Soviet Union adopted a version of the European model with which all the CIS countries embarked on their transformations in 1991. Thereafter most (but not all) of their education systems have been at least partly Americanised. This development was unplanned. The initial catalyst was the closure or labour rundowns at most of the state plants to which vocational secondary schools and many higher education institutions were linked. The abandonment of state central planning (where this was abandoned) was not accompanied by the development of German-style corporatist arrangements through which to plan the re-alignment of businesses’ needs and vocational education. One outcome in most of the relevant countries has been large increases in the proportions of young people completing general/academic secondary education and, in most places, progressing into higher education.[4] The extent of these changes varies from place-to-place. Everywhere there are still some vocational/technical/professional secondary schools, sometimes still servicing their original industrial plants, sometimes revived or newly created by new private businesses[5], and sometimes acting as residual safety-nets, accommodating young people who fail to gain places in other schools.[6]

The countries where there has been least structural change in education are those that have been slowest to ‘reform’ their economies and politics (Azerbaijan, Belarus and Uzbekistan, for example). In practice, all countries have mixed systems; they are never as pure as the ideal types. That said, the direction of change in most CIS countries has been unmistakable and in the countries that have changed there can probably be no turning back for two sets of reasons. First, the relevant ex-communist countries are not yet capable (and may never become capable) of introducing the kind of corporatist economic management that is required if the European model is to work at its best.[7] Second, the European model was probably better-suited to twentieth century industrial contexts than to twenty-first century global market conditions. The model is creaking even in the European countries such as Germany where it has been strongest.[8] It has proved impossible to implant (West) German practices into the new eastern Lander.[9] The basic problem appears to be that the model proves too cumbersome amid turbulent technological and market conditions. Businesses find that they need to be flexible which is easier within the American model.

If the future is American in this respect, then, where Americanisation has occurred, the new market economies’ education systems have been changing in the right direction. The questions that then arise are:

·            Have there been corresponding changes in firms’ and young people’s labour market behaviour?

·            Have there been corresponding changes in businesses’ skill formation strategies and employees’ approaches to their own career development?

·            If not, what are the obstacles and how might these be overcome?

In these changed times, young people should expect and accept:

·            Employment that does not match their education-based specialties.

·            Initial jobs which fall short of their aspirations.

·            A period of trial and floundering prior to finding jobs in which they want and are able to settle.

·            That they need training on taking-up employment, then recurrently.

·            That they need to take personal responsibility for enlarging their portfolios of skills and qualifications, partly as a safeguard if they need or want to change their employers.

For their part, employers should:

·            Seek recruits who are trainable rather than ready-skilled.

·            Provide basic training and then prescribe subsequent training for recruits and staff at all levels.

·            Create internal labour markets to incentivise employees to extend their skills and to demonstrate their capabilities and commitment.

Then, in so far as employers and employees are willing to change, the questions arise as to whether they are encountering obstacles such as:

·            No suitable education or training facilities.

·            Education failing to provide clear signals of trainability.

 

Methods

Questions about the sources of young people’s school-to-work transition problems are highly policy-relevant in all the new market economies (and elsewhere as well). The research reported here has sought answers in just three specimen regions in three of the new market economies (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan). It tests simultaneously the ‘weak labour demand’ hypothesis, the ‘wrong skills’ hypothesis, and the ‘partial Americanisation’ theory. If hypothesis 2 (wrong skills) or hypothesis 3 (partial Americanisation) is correct, then unless corrective actions ensue the likely long-term outcomes will be firms operating on low-skill/low-pay equilibriums, and long-term reliance on foreign trained and based staff for many high-level skills. The hypotheses, and especially the third (partial Americanisation) hypothesis, arise from previous research in the new market economies but up to now none have been tested properly.

During 2006 each of three local-based research teams studied a ‘balanced selection’ of 20 or 21 businesses in its home region (Almaty in Kazakhstan, Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, and Samarkand in Uzbekistan). The balance was between firms that were small but not micro (10-99 employees) and larger, and in old and new business sectors. Food and drink processing, engineering and other manufacturing, and construction represented the old economies, while financial services and ICT represented the new. With a total of 61 businesses (21 in Bishkek, 20 elsewhere) from the three regions/countries, we will show that it is possible to draw tentative conclusions about differences according to business sector and country/region. Information from the companies was obtained by interviews with the personnel/human resource or more senior managers, or the owners. The interview schedule was developed from instruments that had previously been used successfully in enquires in East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union.[10] These schedules focused on changes in the businesses since independence (or whenever the companies were formed if post-1991), trends in profitability, volume of output and turnover, and in the workforces (numbers and types of employees and occupations). Thereafter, the interviews explored in depth the firms’ methods of recruitment, types of recruits sought to different occupations, amounts and types of training provided and prescribed, and opportunities for career progression, all within a framework of changes and stabilities over time. Other issues that were explored in depth were the firms’ satisfaction or otherwise with the quantity and quality (suitability) of the staff they were able to attract and retain, and the firms’ practices as regards training and retraining employees using internal and external facilities. These interviews included both structured and open-ended questions.

A second, parallel strand in the fieldwork comprised surveys using self-completion questionnaires of young employees (up to age 30) in all the participating companies (total response = 1402). This schedule too was based on instruments already used successfully to gather information about young people’s labour market behaviour and career development in the new market economies.[11] Information on family backgrounds, age, sex, nationality and region/country of origin was sought, then on education and labour market/employment biographies. Thereafter the schedule explored in detail post-labour market entry experiences of education and training, qualifications and skills acquired, the respondents’ ambitions at the time of leaving school and whether these had subsequently changed and if so why, and the extent to which the individuals were satisfied with their current employment, opportunities to add to their skills and qualifications, and to progress within or outside their present companies. The total response (1402) was sufficient to explore differences by place, types of firms and many other factors.

A third strand in the project involved profiling post-1991 changes in secondary and tertiary education, and in the structure of the economies, business mixes and labour markets, in each of the participating regions and countries. The profiling was from documentary sources and existing data sets, supplemented by interviews with key informants in central and regional/local government departments.

Both the questionnaire for use with young employees and the interview schedule for use with employers were piloted prior to the main fieldwork. In each of the regions investigated, the project’s normal fieldwork language was Russian.

The information gathered in the three strands of research enables the project’s hypotheses to be tested.

i.    If the ‘weak labour demand’ hypothesis is correct, then in the places where labour demand was weakest, employers should have been experiencing the least difficulties in recruiting the numbers and types of personnel sought whereas, at the beginning of their careers, difficulties among young people should have been most severe and widespread.

ii.   If the ‘wrong skills’ hypothesis is correct then employers in new (expanding) business sectors should have been experiencing difficulties (moreso then those in old sectors) and likewise young people without new skills (moreso than those prepared for employment in new, expanding business sectors).

iii.If the ‘partial Americanisation’ hypothesis is correct, then where education had changed in this particular way, difficulties should have been equally widespread across all business sectors and among both employers and young people.

It should be noted here that the hypotheses are not all either/or. Hypothesis 1 is compatible with both 2 and 3, whereas 2 and 3 are not compatible with one another.

Many studies of youth labour market issues, especially young people’s transition to work problems, have focused on the young unemployed (or the ‘socially excluded’ as they are often described nowadays). Our research differs in this respect. We gain impressions of conditions in the external youth labour markets in the three cities via the experiences on leaving education and seeking their initial jobs of the young employees in our samples, and from firms’ experiences when seeking young recruits. We know from previous research in the new market economies that on leaving full-time education young people have very soon (within a year) been divided into those who obtain regular employment then stay fully employed, their work experience becoming an additional asset should they need or wish to change jobs, and others who face long-term difficulties in breaking in.[12] All the young adults in our research had broken in, and their experiences in employment, and their employers’ experiences and behaviour, enable us to explore the sources, the causes, of young people’s employment and unemployment problems more effectively than is possible when focusing exclusively on young people (their numbers and their characteristics) who have failed to break in.

 

 

FINDINGS

The Locations

We need to refine our original hypotheses in order to engage with the evidence that we collected. This is because the situations encountered ‘on the ground’ were predictably more complicated than our initial questions. Social research can never achieve the purity of a laboratory experiment. For example, whether firms were finding it difficult to recruit the kinds of labour that they needed nearly always depended on the types of occupations being filled. Also, each city had particular features that were likely to be affecting the ease with which its businesses could recruit, and the ease with which young people could obtain jobs.

Almaty was by far the most prosperous of the three cities. This was a result of the oil and gas revenues that had been flowing into Kazakhstan since the end of the 1990s. There were numerous indicators of Almaty’s relative economic buoyancy: 84% of its firms said that their business was currently expanding compared with 70% in Samarkand and 65% in Bishkek; since 2000 there had been overall increases in employment in 84% of the Almaty businesses against 70% in Samarkand and 56% in Bishkek; and 59% of the young employees in Almaty were earning at least the equivalent of $250 a month whereas none were earning this much in either Samarkand or Bishkek. Exactly how much of Almaty was prospering was a topic of local debate at the time of our fieldwork. Despite the economic boom that had been underway for several years, there still appeared to be a huge excess of local job-seekers, partly due to an influx of people moving from more depressed areas of Kazakhstan into ‘booming’ Almaty.[13] In 2006 there was still a great deal of youth unemployment, attributed in a 2004 report from the United Nations Development Programme Kazakhstan (see below) to a mismatch between the skills that school and college leavers could offer and what businesses required – our hypothesis 2, which we treat as just one of several possible explanations for the persistence of youth unemployment in Almaty and elsewhere in the following analysis. All that said, in relative terms Almaty was far more prosperous in 2006 than either Bishkek or Samarkand, so our hypothesis 1 suggests that young people should have been finding it easiest to obtain their first jobs, and employers should have been finding it more difficult to recruit in Almaty than in either of our other research locations.

Uzbekistan, in which Samarkand is a regional capital, was making a transition from communism into a managed market economy (and a managed democracy), and alone among our research locations had retained the basic structure of education inherited from Soviet times. There had been substantial government investment in education in Samarkand (and throughout Uzbekistan as a whole) but with the intention of updating and strengthening the old routes through education towards employment. By 2006, around 30% of the upper secondary age group in Samarkand was being educated in newly built or refurbished academic lyceums from where most students were expected to progress to university. The rest of the age group was to be educated in professional colleges (also newly built or completely refurbished), which were replacing the former general secondary and vocational secondary schools and were preparing young people for work in different branches of the Samarkand economy.

By 2006, Almaty and Bishkek had both experienced large increases in the proportions of their young people who were completing an academic secondary education then proceeding to university, and the numbers attending vocational schools had declined in both cities. If either our hypothesis 2 (wrong skills) or hypothesis 3 (partial Americanisation) is correct, businesses in Samarkand should have been experiencing less difficulty in finding young people with appropriate skills, and young people should have been finding it less difficult to obtain jobs commensurate with their education than in either of the other two cities. Labour demand in Almaty was considerably stronger than in either Samarkand or Bishkek, so the fairest comparison to assess the consequences of retaining vocational tracks in upper secondary education and capping the expansion of higher education in Samarkand is with Bishkek.

By 2006, Kyrgyzstan (where Bishkek is the capital) was just regaining its 1991 level of economic output, and Uzbekistan was in roughly the same position in this respect. Kyrgyzstan differed in that, as noted above, the number of students on vocational courses had declined, and higher education had expanded massively – from a participation rate of around 12% in 1991 to over 50% by 2006. In 1991 Kyrgyzstan had just nine higher education institutions whereas by 2006 there were 51 (including nine new private universities). Most of the growth had been in subjects unrelated to the students’ likely future employment.[14]

Almaty (and Kazakhstan in general) had experienced similar developments. In Kazakhstan the proportion of 19-24 year olds in higher education rose from 17.8% in 1996 to 33.4% in 2001.[15] In 1999, when a national examination for university entry was introduced in Kazakhstan, 23% of secondary school leavers took the tests; by 2002 89% were taking them.[16] If our hypothesis 3 (partial Americanisation) is valid, one would expect firms in all sectors, and young people in general, to have been encountering greater difficulties in the labour market in Bishkek than in Samarkand. Strong economic growth could have accounted for any greater difficulties encountered by firms in Almaty, but not in Bishkek.

 

Recruitment and Job Hunting

Which employers were experiencing the most serious difficulties when hiring labour, and which young job seekers were experiencing the most important problems? Before proceeding to the relevant evidence, a restatement of what we are initially looking for may be useful.

·            If the main determinant of levels of difficulty on both sides of the labour market was the relative strength of labour demand and supply (hypothesis 1), young job seekers should have encountered least difficulty in Almaty, and employers should have encountered the most serious difficulties, in Almaty.

·            If mismatch (hypothesis 2) was the main problem, both sides of the labour market should have experienced least difficulty in Samarkand, and employers in old as opposed to new business sectors in all three cities, and young people with new as opposed to old skills, again in all three cities.

·            If partial Americanisation (hypothesis 3) was the main source of difficulties, once again, both employers and young job seekers should have experienced fewest problems in Samarkand, but in this case the problems elsewhere should have been spread evenly across business sectors.

 

 

 

 

 

Table II   Firms’ Recruitment Difficulties by Location (in percentages)

	Almaty	Bishkek	Samarkand
Recruitment usually difficult for:
Managers	63	61	45
Professionals	42	41	40
Office staff	17	18	15
Manuals	17	5	0
Difficulties when recruiting managers
Shortage of specialists	88	83	70
Working conditions	0	25	55
Low salaries	0	41	55
Professionals
Shortage of specialists	83	82	70
Working conditions	0	43	35
Low salaries	0	50	55
Office staff
Shortage of specialists	67	56	35
Working conditions	0	39	35
Low salaries	50	62	40
Manual
Shortage of skilled workers	50	47	35
Working conditions	0	25	15
Low salaries	100	53	45
N =	20	21	20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table III   Firms’ Recruitment Difficulties by Business Sector (in percentages)

	Old sector	New sector
Recruitment usually difficult for:
Managers	54	59
Professionals	36	48
Office staff	19	13
Manuals	9	4
Difficulties when recruiting managers
Shortage of specialists	73	88
Working conditions	48	29
Low salaries	57	33
Professionals
Shortage of specialists	69	88
Working conditions	48	21
Low salaries	67	29
Office staff
Shortage of specialists	36	65
Working conditions	35	36
Low salaries	52	43
Manual
Shortage of skilled workers	48	31
Working conditions	26	7
Low salaries	56	43
N=	37	23

 

Our actual findings do not match any of these clear hypothesised patterns. Most employers in all three cities, in old and new business sectors, reported that filling office and manual vacancies was not a problem (see Tables II and III). Filling management and professional/specialist positions was often reported to be a problem in all three cities, and in all business sectors; this applied whenever the firms wanted someone with relevant experience. Salary competition, and other terms and conditions of employment, were the most likely problems when there were any difficulties (which were exceptional) in recruiting to manual and office posts, and higher-level positions as well in some cases. Salary competition was a more serious problem for employers in Samarkand and Bishkek than in Almaty because in the former cities manual employees (especially skilled construction workers) were liable to exit for Kazakhstan or Russia where considerably higher earnings were available. Two-thirds of the employers reported that they were satisfied with the quality of the people they were recruiting into all types of jobs with no clear differences between the cities or business sectors (see Tables IV and V).

 

Table IV   Firms’ Satisfaction with the Quality of Recruits by Location (in percentages)

Not satisfied with quality of recruits	Almaty	Bishkek	Samarkand
Managers	16	21	25
Professionals	11	24	25
Office	28	25	35
Manuals	33	35	25
N =	20	21	20

 

Table V   Firms’ Satisfaction with the Quality of Recruits by Business Sector (in percentages)

Not satisfied with quality of recruits	Old sector	New sector
Managers	20	22
Professionals	27	8
Office	32	26
Manuals	29	35
N =	37	23

 

The samples of young employees were asked how easy it had been for them when they had been searching for their first jobs, how many jobs they had been offered at the time, whether they had managed to avoid unemployment lasting a month or longer, whether their first jobs matched what they wanted at the time, and how easy they thought it would be to move to another job which was as good or better than their current jobs. We also asked how closely their first and current jobs matched their education.

Once again, there is no clear, immediately visible pattern in the evidence which matches just one or two of our initial hypotheses (see Tables VI and VII). The young employees had received the most job offers on first entering the labour market in Almaty but had been most likely to avoid unemployment in Samarkand. Bishkek does not head the league on any of the indicators of ease of finding jobs and comes a poor third in the number of job offers typically received on leaving education, and how easy the respondents felt it would be to move to another job as good or better than those they currently occupied. The generally greater difficulties reported by the young people in Bishkek are consistent with all our hypotheses: labour demand was weaker than in Almaty, and, unlike in Samarkand, education in Bishkek had not normally prepared young people for any specific types of employment.

 

Table VI   Young Employees’ Labour Market Difficulties by Place (in percentages)

	Almaty	Bishkek	Samarkand
Very easy or easy to find first job	37	52	58
Perfect match to what wanted	33	29	34
How many jobs offered: more than 1	67	35	48
Never unemployed for at least a month	35	35	50
Very easy/quite easy to find another job at least as good	58	30	60
Education corresponds with first job Wholly	45	29	33
Partly	43	21	45
Education corresponds with current job Wholly	45	29	33
Partly	43	21	45
N =	480	503	419

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table VII   Young Employees’ Labour Market Difficulties by Place and Business Sector (n percentages)

	Almaty old sector	Almaty new sector	Bishkek old sector	Bishkek new sector	S’kand old sector	S’kand new sector
Very easy or easy to find first job	47	47	50	57	63	53
Perfect match to what wanted	24	38	21	43	26	44
How many jobs offered: more than 1	63	69	25	55	45	51
Never unemployed for at least a month	33	37	32	42	53	44
Very easy/quite easy to find another job at least as good	60	56	24	41	52	72
First job corresponded with educational background: Wholly	36	49	18	57	32	42
Partly	42	39	18	17	42	44
Current job corresponds with educational background: Wholly	32	52	15	55	27	40
Partly	47	41	19	24	47	44
N =	180	300	330	173	245	161

It is of some interest here that the reported correspondences between the young people’s education and the jobs they had entered were closer in Almaty than in Samarkand, and on all the intra-city comparisons these correspondences were closer when the young employees were employed in new rather than old business sectors. This evidence alone may be considered sufficient to reject hypothesis 2 (the mismatch explanation) because the differences run in exactly the opposite directions than suggested by the hypothesis. Also, none of the evidence from employers gives clear support to the mismatch theory.

However, although sometimes inconsistent, the evidence presented above is insufficient to reject the labour supply/demand imbalances explanation of labour market difficulties (hypothesis 1). Labour demand was stronger in Almaty than in the other cities, but as indicated above, there is evidence from other sources that there was still substantial excess labour in Almaty in 2006 where, as in the other locations, employers very rarely reported difficulties when filling any kinds of occupations except when they were seeking relevant experience. Variations in the strength of reported correspondence between the young people’s education and their jobs were unrelated to variations in the ease or difficulties that they had experienced when job searching, and which employers were experiencing when recruiting. As stated above, when employers reported any difficulties it was relevant experience that was said to be in short supply rather than young people with appropriate education.

If mismatch (hypothesis 2) is rejected, then partial Americanisation (hypothesis 3) stands as an alternative plausible explanation for some of the difficulties reported by young people in Almaty and Bishkek. In Samarkand, weak labour demand relative to supply appears to be the sole plausible explanation of young people’s job finding difficulties.

 

Developing Human Resources

One reason why firms in all three cities reported few difficulties when filling manual vacancies was that in old business sectors (where most manual employment was based) expanding firms had found it possible to recruit staff who had been offloaded from other companies. In Almaty, when these local human resources dried up, it was possible to attract migrants from neighbouring CIS countries (usually Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan). Clearly, neither of these solutions to skill shortages could operate universally or indefinitely. All types of businesses in all three cities reported difficulties when seeking qualified and experienced managers and professionals/specialists. In so far as they were experiencing skill shortages, to what extent were the firms developing the required skills and experience within their own workforces?

We can measure the ways and extent to which different kinds of businesses were investing in human resources from the reports of their young employees. They were asked, in relation to their current jobs, whether they had received formal induction training, then subsequent training either inside or outside their firms, whether they had moved on to different jobs from those that they did when they first joined the companies, and whether they felt that they had progressed in their careers and skills (see Tables VIII and IX).

 

Table VIII   Young Employees’ Career Development Experiences by Place (in percentages)

	Almaty	Bishkek	Samarkand
Not still doing basically same job as when started at firm	43	38	49
Formal induction	55	54	43
Subsequent formal training in firm	41	21	33
Sent outside for training	34	12	28
A great deal of progress in terms of: Skill	63	48	37
Career	28	9	24
N =	480	503	419

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table IX   Young Employees’ Career Development Experiences by Place and Business Sector (in percentages)

	Almaty old sector	Almaty new sector	Bishkek old sector	Bishkek new sector	S’kand old sector	S’kand new sector
Not still doing basically same job as when started at firm	40	45	38	37	52	45
Formal induction	45	61	41	79	32	60
Subsequent formal training in firm	30	49	11	39	29	40
Sent outside for training	23	40	4	26	22	35
A great deal of progress in terms of: Skill	50	70	42	61	33	42
Career	20	33	6	14	20	29
N =	180	300	330	173	245	161

 

Here we see some very clear-cut differences. On five out of the six indicators the Almaty sample of young employees reported the most career development experiences at their current workplaces (Table VIII). On 16 out of the 18 intra-city comparisons (Table IX), young people in new business sectors had more career development experiences than those employed in old sectors. The new sector employers, of course, had the greatest need to nurture the particular skills that they required if only because there were no older, experienced staff available in the local labour markets. A plausible explanation of Almaty’s lead is its expanding economy fostering confidence that the businesses would reap returns on their investments in human resources.

We should note that the absolute proportions of young people experiencing all forms of training and career development were rather modest. This was especially so in old business sectors where, in all three cities, less than a half of recruits had received any formal induction training and less than a third had received any subsequent training in their current jobs. Even in new sector businesses in Almaty, only 33% of the young employees felt that they had made a great deal of career progress since joining their current employers, just 49% had received any formal training after their initial inductions (if any), and 55% reported that they were still doing basically the same jobs as when they started at the firms.

To what extent were the young employees behaving pro-actively, and how flexible were they willing to be in promoting their own career development? We have six indicators: the competence that they had developed in English language (higher levels of competence usually required private classes or coaching), whether they had taken any courses on their own initiative and gained further qualifications as a result since starting their employment careers, whether they possessed written CVs, whether they had changed their ambitions since completing full-time education, and whether they would seek fresh challenges and opportunities to learn new skills if they changed jobs (see Tables X and XI).

 

Table X   Young Workers’ pro-Activity and Flexibility by Place (in percentages)

	Almaty	Bishkek	Samarkand
Good or better English	42	22	20
Ambitions changed since left education	77	61	69
Taken course(s) on own initiative	26	17	14
Further qualification(s)	17	12	8
Written CV	42	31	23
If look for another job, very important that it offers new challenges/opportunities to learn new skills	65	61	55
N =	480	503	419

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table XI   Young Workers’ pro-Activity and Flexibility by Place and Business Sector (in percentages)

	Almaty old sector	Almaty new sector	Bishkek old sector	Bishkek new sector	S’kand old sector	S’kand new sector
Good or better English	32	49	12	39	12	30
Ambitions not still the same as when left education	75	78	56	71	70	69
Taken course(s) on own initiative	22	28	8	35	13	15
Further qualification(s)	13	19	9	17	11	5
Written CV	31	49	20	54	10	41
If look for another job, very important that it offers new challenges/opportunities to learn new skills	64	66	57	68	53	56
N =	180	300	330	173	245	161

 

On all six indicators the young people in Almaty proved more pro-active and flexible than their comparators in Bishkek and Samarkand. Within Almaty, on five out of the six indicators, and on all six in Bishkek, young employees in new business sectors were the most pro-active and flexible. In Samarkand, in contrast, there were no clear differences by sector (Table XI).

What conclusions can be drawn? We infer that young employees were most likely to be pro-active in their own career development and flexible in their ambitions when they were in locations where career opportunities were expanding, that is, in Almaty rather than Bishkek or Samarkand, and in new rather than old business sectors except that this appeared to depend on their education not having led them to believe that they were already vocationally proficient (most likely in Samarkand). Generally, the young employees were flexible in their career planning and were seeking to develop their careers. Over 50% of those in both old and new business sectors in all three cities said that if they changed jobs they would seek new challenges and opportunities to expand their skills. Over two-thirds, again in both old and new business sectors and in all three cities, had changed their ambitions since completing full-time education; the sole exception here is that just 56% of those working in old business sectors in Bishkek had done so.

All this evidence supports a somewhat amended version of our original hypothesis 1. The different overall balances between labour demand and supply were not explaining the extent to which firms or beginning workers experienced difficulties at the points of hiring and job searching respectively. However, an expanding economy and expanding labour demand seemed to be increasing firms’ need and confidence to invest in developing the skills of their workforces, and the same conditions seemed to be encouraging young employees to invest in their own career development. ‘Partial Americanisation’, which had occurred in Almaty and Bishkek, appeared to be having positive rather than negative consequences in terms of young people’s opportunities for career development. Firms knew that they needed to nurture within their existing workforces the skills that they required. Young employees knew that they were deficient in occupation-specific skills. In stark contrast, rather than promoting ongoing human resource development, Samarkand’s planned routes from education into different segments of the workforce were failing to encourage either employers or their young employees to put themselves in charge of their own prospects.

 

DISCUSSION

A normal outcome of fieldwork is that surviving hypotheses are amended, then in their revised form become available for testing in further enquiries. This is how knowledge progresses: nothing is ever established beyond dispute with 100% certainty. In contrast, hypotheses can be rejected and thereby, at least for the time being, jettisoned from research agendas. In our case we believe that ‘mismatch’ (hypothesis 2) can be abandoned.

Our research locations did not include an example of young people being trained in excessive numbers in old outdated skills or for employment in declining industries. We doubt if there are any such places. It appears that the normal course of events in the new market economies has been for vocational schools and courses to contract alongside corresponding businesses and jobs. Samarkand was restructuring its upper secondary education to correspond with the changing profile of the region’s workforce. In Almaty and Bishkek young people were not continuing to be trained in old skills but had moved from vocational routes into enlarged educational programmes that did not prepare them for any particular kinds of employment unless they went on to become teachers or researchers in their academic specialisms. Another reason for dispensing with the mismatch hypothesis is that we did not find that businesses in new sectors were experiencing more difficulty than their counterparts in older sectors in recruiting appropriate staff and building skilled workforces.

We are minded to dismiss rather than amend the mismatch hypothesis not just because of the absence of any support in our quantitative data, but also on account of softer evidence that we collected. An occasional employer did say that it would be helpful if there were more applicants who had been prepared specifically for jobs in the particular industry, but this was exceptional. Most employers, in old and new business sectors, said that they would always give equal consideration to applicants from a range of educational backgrounds. This applied even in Samarkand where most businesses were not restricting recruitment, and usually did not even have a preference for, young people who had attended corresponding schools and colleges. Some employers in Samarkand argued that the region’s vocational schools had been better in the past, in communist times, when the schools had been sited on enterprises’ premises and when much of the curriculum consisted of work experience. They did not have equal regard for the upgraded professional colleges where more of the instruction was classroom-based.

Hypothesis 3, partial Americanisation, is supported by our evidence in so far as this is exactly what had happened in Bishkek and Almaty. Their education systems were not continuing to produce young people prepared for employment in occupations and industries that had disappeared, but had shifted young people onto enlarged educational programmes where the content bore no close relationship to any of the kinds of employment to which graduates might progress (unless they became teachers or researchers in the subjects). However, our original statement of this hypothesis needs amendment into line with our evidence. The original statement posited partial Americanisation as an obstacle to the employment of young people and a cause of youth unemployment and under-employment. These would have been among the consequences if young people had been rigidly committed to careers in their academic specialisms, but this was simply not the case. Partial Americanisation would also have been an obstacle to youth employment if firms had been unwilling to hire and train young people with no prior experience or knowledge about the businesses, but in practice many (though admittedly not all) employers were responding differently. Some believed that there were advantages in doing all occupation-specific training in-house. Were they doing enough? Probably not. None of the firms had developed a reliable way of producing future managers and professional-grade staff – the positions that were usually reported to be difficult to fill and where most firms were trying (with mixed results) to acquire relevant experience via external labour markets. Businesses in older sectors were relying heavily on older skilled staff, people who were in mid- or late-career. In both old and new sectors young employees were typically doing low skill, low paid, and often, we suspect, low quality work. However, some firms (mainly in new business sectors) were developing their own training provisions and using external providers, including local universities who were willing to lay-on customised courses. The solution to any problems created by partial Americanisation appeared to be to push on to full Americanisation rather than to try to re-create, through state or corporatist planning, programmes in upper secondary and higher education matching particular countries’ and regions’ new occupational mixes.

Hypothesis 1 (insufficient demand for labour being responsible for young people’s transition into employment problems) is supported by our evidence, but this evidence also shows that our original hypothesis needs substantial amendment. Evidence is hardly necessary to argue that youth unemployment will rise and fall according to the relative strength of labour demand and supply in local markets. However, our original hypothesis envisaged large shortfalls in labour demand having generalised depressing effects on job opportunities for young workers, and correspondingly making life easier for employers. This was not how affairs were working out in practice. Once young people had broken into regular employment they became ‘insiders’, largely insulated from the effects of external levels of unemployment. Huge surpluses of job seekers did not make it easier for employers to select the most suitable, or to solve problems related to shortages and the production of the particular skills and other capabilities that the firms needed. Relatively low unemployment did not necessarily make it easy for young people to find the particular jobs that they wanted. The mechanisms remain unclear, but our evidence suggests that when firms are growing and confident about their future prospects, both the employers and their young employees are willing to ratchet up their ‘investments in human resources’. This scenario was more likely to be found in new as opposed to old business sectors in Almaty and Bishkek, and more often in all sectors in Almaty than in either of the other research locations.

There were crude surpluses of labour in all the cities that we investigated. These surpluses may take a long time to drain. A current fact of life throughout the entire post-communist world seems to be that when a particular city’s economy booms, labour is sucked in from other regions and sometimes from other countries. However, in some ways this makes no difference to ‘insiders’ (the businesses or their employees). What seems to make a difference to human resource formation is whether particular businesses are growing and can be optimistic about their futures, and such businesses, needless to say, will be most numerous in times and places of general economic expansion.

This is our amended version of original hypothesis 1, which interfaces with amended hypothesis 3. Economic growth may not eliminate unemployment, but it increases the chances of young people obtaining regular jobs, and also creates the conditions inside firms which impact on the experiences of owners, managers and employees in ways that speed up the transition from partial to full Americanisation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

Duncan, Russell and Goddard, Joseph, Contemporary America, 2^nd edition, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2005).

Evans, Karen; Behrens, Martin and Kaluza, Jens, Learning and Work in the Risk Society: Lessons for the Labour Markets of Europe from Eastern Germany, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).

Freeman, Richard B., The Over-Educated American, (New York: Academic Press, 1976).

Grunert, H. and Lutz, B., “A Double Process of Destabilization in post-Socialist Societies: The Case of Germany”, Paper Presented to Workshop of the European Science Foundation Scientific Network on Transitions in Youth, La Ciotat, 1996.

Hyman, Richard, “Institutional Transfer: Industrial Relations in Eastern Germany”, Work, Employment and Society, Vol. 10, No. 4, 1996.

Kassymbekova, Botagoz, “Seeds for a Poor Harvest”, Eurasia Insight, 18 February 2005; available at (http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp021

805.shtml).

Kohler, H-D., “Adjustment Problems between Human Resource Strategies and Public Educational Systems in Germany and Spain”, Paper Presented to European Research Network on Transitions in Youth, Oslo, 1999.

Krug, Edward A., The Shaping of the American High School, (New York: Harper and Row, 1964).

Kurakbaev, Sharip, “Migrants Compound Almaty’s Problems”, Reporting Central Asia, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 01 June 2001; available at (http://iwpr.net/?p=rca&s=f&o=176171&apc_state=henirca2001).

Markowitz, Fran, Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Russia, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000).

Meshkova, E., “Education and Restructuring Russia: History and Tendencies”, Paper Presented to International Sociological Association Congress, Montreal, 1998.

Osterman, Paul, Getting Started, (Cambridge, Mass:, MIT Press, 1980).

Roberts, Ken, “The Career Pathways of Young Adults in the Former Soviet Union”, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 19, 2006.

Roberts, Ken; Osadchaya, Galina; Dsuzev, Hasan; Gorodyanenko, Victor and Tholen, Jochen, “Who Succeeds and Who Flounders? Young People in East Europe’s New Market Economies”, Sociological Research Online, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2002.

Roberts, Ken; Duisenbekov, D.; Balykbaev, T.; Shabelnikov, V. and Tholen, J., “How to Manage Successfully in Central Asia”, Journal of East European Management Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2002.

Roberts, Ken, “The New East European Model of Education, Training and Youth Employment”, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2001.

Roberts, Ken; Kurzynowski, A.; Szumlicz, T. and Jung, B., “Employers’ Workforce Formation Practices, Roberts, Ken; Clark, S. C.; Fagan C. and Tholen, J., Surviving Post-Communism: Young People in the Former Soviet Union, (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2000).

Young People’s Employment Opportunities and Labour Market Behaviour in post-Communist Poland”, Communist Economies and Economic Transformation, Vol. 9, 1997.

Roberts, Ken and Szumlicz, T., “Education and School-to-work Transitions in post-Communist Poland”, British Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1995.

Rumberger, R. W., Overeducation in the US Labor Market, (New York: Praeger, 1981).

Sattarov, R. M. and Lemberanskaya, L. M., “Changing Socio-economic System and Transitions of Youth into the Labour Market in Azerbaijan”, in Transitions and Mobility in the Youth Labour Market: Proceedings of Workshop of the European Network on Transitions in Youth, Norwegian Social Research, Oslo, 1999.

Shavit, Y. and Muller, W., “Vocational Education: Where Diversion and Where Safety Net?”, European Societies, Vol. 2, 2000.

Turner, Ralph H., “Sponsored and Contest Mobility in the School System”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 25, No. 6, 1960.

Nations Development Programme Kazakhstan, Poverty in Kazakhstan: Causes and Cures (Almaty: Publication UNDPKAZ08, UNDP, 2004).

Zhakenov, G., Kazakhstan National Report on Higher Education System Development; available at (www.unesco.kz/he/kazakh_eng.htm).

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[1]     Ken Roberts, Galina Osadchaya, Hasan Dsuzev, Victor Gorodyanenko and Jochen Tholen, “Who Succeeds and Who Flounders? Young People in East Europe’s New Market Economies”, Sociological Research Online, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2002.

[2]     Edward A. Krug, The Shaping of the American High School, (New York: Harper and Row, 1964); Paul Osterman, Getting Started, (Cambridge, Mass:, MIT Press, 1980); Ralph H. Turner, “Sponsored and Contest Mobility in the School System”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 25, No. 6, 1960, pp. 855-867.

[3]     Russell Duncan and Joseph Goddard, Contemporary America, 2^nd edition, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2005); Richard B. Freeman, The Over-Educated American, (New York: Academic Press, 1976); R. W. Rumberger, Overeducation in the US Labor Market, (New York: Praeger, 1981).

[4]    Fran Markowitz, Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Russia, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000); E. Meshkova, “Education and Restructuring Russia: History and Tendencies”, Paper Presented to International Sociological Association Congress, Montreal, 1998; R. M. Sattarov and L. M. Lemberanskaya, “Changing Socio-economic System and Transitions of Youth into the Labour Market in Azerbaijan”, in Transitions and Mobility in the Youth Labour Market: Proceedings of Workshop of the European Network on Transitions in Youth, Norwegian Social Research, Oslo, 1999, pp. 25-34.

[5]     Ken Roberts, “The New East European Model of Education, Training and Youth Employment”, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2001, pp. 315-328; Ken Roberts and T Szumlicz, “Education and School-to-work Transitions in post-Communist Poland”, British Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1995, pp. 54-74.

[6] Fran Markowitz, Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Russia, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000).

[7] Y. Shavit and W. Muller, “Vocational Education: Where Diversion and Where Safety Net?”, European Societies, Vol. 2, 2000, pp. 29-50.

[8] H-D Kohler, “Adjustment Problems between Human Resource Strategies and Public Educational Systems in Germany and Spain”, Paper Presented to European Research Network on Transitions in Youth, Oslo, 1999.

[9]    Karen Evans, Martin Behrens and Jens Kaluza, Learning and Work in the Risk Society: Lessons for the Labour Markets of Europe from Eastern Germany, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000); H. Grunert and B. Lutz, “A Double Process of Destabilization in post-Socialist Societies: The Case of Germany”, Paper Presented to Workshop of the European Science Foundation Scientific Network on Transitions in Youth, La Ciotat, 1996; Richard Hyman, “Institutional Transfer: Industrial Relations in Eastern Germany”, Work, Employment and Society, Vol. 10, No. 4, 1996, pp. 601-639.

[10]  Ken Roberts, A. Kurzynowski, T. Szumlicz and B. Jung, “Employers’ Workforce Formation Practices, Young People’s Employment Opportunities and Labour Market Behaviour in post-Communist Poland”, Communist Economies and Economic Transformation, Vol. 9, 1997, pp. 87-98; Ken Roberts, D. Duisenbekov, T. Balykbaev, V. Shabelnikov and J. Tholen, “How to Manage Successfully in Central Asia”, Journal of East European Management Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2002, pp. 316-322.

[11]    Ken Roberts, S. C. Clark, C. Fagan and J. Tholen, Surviving Post-Communism: Young People in the Former Soviet Union, (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2000); Ken Roberts, G. Osadchaya, H. V. Dsuzev, V. G. Gorodyanenko and J. Tholen, “Who Succeeds and Who Flounders? Young People in East Europe’s New Market Economies”, Sociological Research Online, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2002.

[12] Ken Roberts, “The Career Pathways of Young Adults in the Former Soviet Union”, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 19, 2006, pp. 415-432.

[13]Sharip Kurakbaev, “Migrants Compound Almaty’s Problems”, Reporting Central Asia, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 01 June 2001; available at (http://iwpr.net/?p=rca&s=f&o=176171&apc_st

ate=henirca2001).

[14]  Botagoz Kassymbekova, “Seeds for a Poor Harvest”, Eurasia Insight, 18 February 2005; available at (http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp021805.shtml). Accessed 25 February 2005.

[15] United Nations Development Programme Kazakhstan, Poverty in Kazakhstan: Causes and Cures (Almaty: Publication UNDPKAZ08, UNDP, 2004).

[16]G. Zhakenov, Kazakhstan National Report on Higher Education System Development. Available at (www.unesco.kz/he/kazakh_eng.htm). Accessed 29 January 2007.