Fig 7.Access to labour market

It should be mentioned that percentage of unemployed who found a job in regional level depends of national economy development in each region. In 1997 the highest level was in Ventspils city - 92.2%, Saldus district - 69.4%, Valmieras district - 67,8%. In Riga City this percentage was 57.7%, but in Riga district only 31.4%, Talsu district - 30,0%, Liepajas district - 20,8%. In Latgale region it was 34,5% in Ludzas district, 34,8% in Daugavpils district.

The year of 1998 comes with the new tendencies -

• organising of unemployed retraining courses regarding to employers demand and employers guaranteed job providing. The State Employment Service receives demand for employers to prepare 5000 employees on different specialities in 1998. The main interest was from different sewing, foot - wear producing, wood - processing, food - producing, trade enterprises side. Some narrow specialised enterprises also have interest on employees trained by State Employment Service due to difficulties to find such kind of specialists among professional educational establishment graduates.

• the second new tendency in 1998 is - training place close to living place due to several reasons that delayed unemployed to change living place for a long time. The training process in 1998 takes part not only in Riga, big cities and district centres but also in different small towns and in small rural districts, for example - Livani, Vilaka, Olaine, Dagda, Barkava, Ergli, Kalnciems, Zuras, Zaube.

• the third new tendency in 1998 is to pay attention on training quality and as an experiment State Employment Service will start to use existing examination centres for assessment of given knowledge and their adequacy to qualification requirements. For example, the qualification exam for welders which will be trained in different places in Latvia will take place in Examination Centre for Welders that was organised on the base of Riga 3. vocational school.

Training in and for enterprises

In 1998, during the period from July to September the Chamber of Industry and commerce was organising a telephone survey in order to re-estimate the employers’ attitude towards CVT. During this survey construction and building enterprises were selectively interviewed in all regions of Latvia. All in all 32 enterprises took part in the survey, with the highest number of employees being 300 and the lowest only 7. The results of the survey are as follows:

• Training of the personnel is done according to actual need, only 6% of the enterprises plan their training
• In most cases training of the personnel is the responsibility of the administration
• In 80% of cases the training refers to the staff, in 20% of cases it refers to the administration
• 29% enterprises do not experience any barriers or problems in training their personnel
• The main obstacles in training of the personnel are:
• Lack or shortage of finances 36%
• Discrepancy between the training needs of the enterprise and the available programs 13%
• No possibility to offer the employee an educational leave 13%
• Inadequate place for the training sessions 6%
• Lack of information on the offered training courses 3%.
• The main functions of continuing vocational training are:
• adaptive,
• innovative
• carrier promotion
• providing of re-training

The employers are currently most interested in the adaptive function, so that their employees may carry out the specific tasks of the enterprise. Also in the innovative function is considered to be important. The promotion of carrier often is the employees own responsibility. Re-training is normally the function attributed to the unemployed, but there are also cases when the employers are interested to re-train some of their workers.

• to secure acquisition of specific professional skills by employees,
• to encourage the employees to stay with the enterprise
• to provide motivation of employees through training
• to enhance communication within the enterprise
• to secure personnel policy development

Questioning among employers indicates that training is rarely planned in advance, usually it is a reaction to an immediate need, e.g. a new PC software, or certain changes in accountancy system or taxation system need to be acquired etc.

Decision on personnel training is usually taken by the Administration. Personnel training are normally the responsibility of the Administration, the Personnel Department, and the Training Department and of a specific person in charge. This all depends on the size of the enterprise. Planning of training is usually a feature of economically stable enterprises, and they also allocate funds for that. This is extremely important, as continuing vocational training (with the exception of training of the unemployed) is a service one needs to pay for, and the fees are being paid by either the employer, the employee, or partly by the employer and partly by the employee. Fees for language PC courses are usually covered by employees themselves, as these are already considered as routine skills. The training fees are higher in Riga. In other parts of Latvia they are usually lower, depending on the populations and employers ability to pay, and their readiness to invest in continuing vocational training. As the offer of training services in Riga is better than in other parts of Latvia, there is a tendency now among the training providers to offer their services outside Riga.

Example of Grindeks

State joint stock company under privatisation GRINDEKS - one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Latvia is among those organisations where the mastery of working skills is considered essential in the future development of the company and its competitive ability in the market.

It is of the utmost importance for GRINDEKS to have a highly skilled highly trained staff because the production of medicine and pharmaceuticals is a narrow specialisation and there are few such companies in this field in Latvia. Latvia’s vocational schools do not train all types of specialists required at GRINDEKS. It is therefore the responsibility of GRINDEKS to organise the training and development of all the newly recruited and existing employee’s so that they are fully prepared to carry out their work efficiently and skilfully.

The training system employed by GRINDEKS is focused not only on the acquisition of skills for special purposes, but also on the fulfilment of individuals personal qualifications and knowledge, taking into consideration the constant process of the development of science and technology world-wide.

Under the provisions of the Education Laws of the Republic of Latvia the employer is required to provide employees with the opportunity to improve their professional skills and to train for new professions. Implementation of this process is defined by the regulations laid down by the appropriate ministry. The employee’s responsibility is to take specific interest in their own training and retraining needs in line with individual job requirements. The regulations concerning employee’s instruction, training, knowledge assessment and certification are specified by GRINDEKS.

The main actors are the management and the staff of GRINDEKS.

Great attention is paid to the employee’s interests when working out their individual training plans at GRINDEKS. The company’s training department is in contact with a wide range of specialists from many different fields of activity.

Three factors are of paramount importance in defining the employee’s skills:

• Legislative Acts of the Republic of Latvia;
• requirements of the administration of the company regarding the level of employee’s skills;
• the suggestions and aspirations of the employee in question.

The following legislative acts are used at GRINDEKS in defining the individual employee’s skills:

• The Law on implementation of high quality medicine production;
• The Law on Labour Protection and Safety;
• Laws and Regulations of Welfare Ministry and the Cabinet of Ministers.

In order to provide the training efficiently and according to the company’s and employee’s interests, the training department operates as a part of the personnel department. The main objectives of the training department are to:

• identify the training needs;
• arrange the training plan;
• follow the training process.

GRINDEKS company’s in- house training system consists of:

1) initial training- compulsory for all the new comers. Initial training lasts for a period of one week to one month depending upon the degree of speciality and responsibility. Following initial training the employees will be tested on the knowledge acquired from training and only after satisfactory levels of proficiency have been attained will they be allowed to commence working independently with the GRINDEKS organisation.

2) adaptive training- on a regular basis for every employee. The employee may participate in the adaptive training after they have finished the initial training and are allowed to commence working independently. The training department arranges the programme for the adaptive training depending upon the degree of speciality and the programmes are accessible to every employee of the company. As the adaptive training is compulsory for the employees, they are regularly tested on the knowledge in order to identify their qualification and clarify the level of the additional training and find out the employee’s individual desires for improvement of their own proficiency and skills.

3) additional training defined by the employee’s desires and the development trends of the company. Additional training is carried out on a voluntary basis. General tendency of the company’s development is taken into consideration when planning the adaptive training. Three major trends are of particular importance in additional training

• the impact of the information society;
• the impact of the economic internationalisation;
• the impact of the scientific and technical world.

All employees should know the history of the company and its internal working regulations. Each employee is provided with a job description which outlines the individual responsibilities in detail.

Staff members have larger possibilities to participate in working out the adaptive training programme. The training department prepares the information on the training possibilities. This offer covers courses, seminars and conferences organised in Latvia and abroad. From this offer the employee may choose the most appropriate way how to improve his professional qualification and afterwards writes the application for the specific training. The arrangement of the training plan for the company is based on these applications. Several factors affect the arrangement of the training plan - finances, who are the training providers, when and where the courses or seminars are organised, will the specific employee be able to participate in the specific course or seminar.

The legislative system in Latvia does not encourage the entrepreneurs to train their employees. Consequently the financing of the training results from the employer’s comprehension on education as the investment in company further development and competitive ability. Certain financial resources are assigned for the employee’s training at GRINDEKS every year. It is not a constant sum of money and it may vary according to the company’s financial situation and current development needs. Considering the fact that company- provided training is not encouraged in Latvia, in case of administrative or strategic changes in GRINDEKS, the training system might be affected as well.

The company "Grindeks" includes 630 employees, 90% of them participate training programmes every year. The company realised 20 training programmes every year.

Training Centre of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is a structural unit of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry with the study rooms in Riga, Liepāja, Daugavpils, Valmiera, Cēsis and Ventspils. The Training Centre realises seminars up to 3 days on the current issues in entrepreneurship and different courses of the duration of several months. The participation was 1257 (3868 hours) persons in 1996 and 1383 (4488 hours) in 1997. The programmes are developed by the teachers in co-operation with the representatives of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry considering the recommendations and wishes of business representatives. The training programmes for the unemployed are accepted by the Professional Education Centre. There are adapted also the programmes developed by foreign partners.

At the Training Centre teachers are the staff of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (4 persons), invited lecturers (42, of which 6 in Riga, 2 in Valmiera, 7 in Cēsis, 25 in Liepāja, 2 in Daugavpils). There are regularly invited foreign lecturers within the framework of different projects (in 1997 - 16 teachers).

Participants of the courses are mainly chief managers of business companies and enterprises, proprietors, employees, and unemployed. Rarely - other interested groups or persons.

Technical facilities for the delivery of training are seven with modern equipment provided study rooms, two of them - computer classes (in Liepāja and Valmiera). The Training Centre is working on self-financing principles.

The Training Centre is collecting and summarising the information on the delivered courses and seminars in Latvia and on the selected topics abroad. During 1998 it is planned to realise the "Continuing Education Base" to be able to provide the information on different training possibilities for the members of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and for other interested groups. After the requirement by the members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry the Training Centre prepares the information on training possibilities.

Only employers provide employees with job and only employees who’s training is based on demand of employees have easier access to labour market and it is a reason for State Employment Service to make more active co-operation with employers. In 1996 the average number of enterprises giving data on vacancies was 822 per month but in 1997 their number reached 1055 and in the first quarter of 1998 is already 1300. Since 1994 twice a year local offices of State Employment Service carry out inquiry on employment situation in enterprises. 4500 enterprises are asked in January of 1997, 5100 in July of 1997 and in January of 1998 almost 6000. The inquiry of 1998 foreseen increasing the rate of employment about 0.2%.

The local offices of State Employment Service pay attention not only to statistical analysis but also try to work out employment promoting plan together with representatives of local municipalities. 26 districts and 7 cities is working out this plan for 1998.

State Employment Service co-operates with different state institutions, professional associations and educational establishments. The Consultative Committee for education establishments providing training for unemployed and disabled job-seekers was established in 1997.

For example, foot-wear enterprise "Daugava" provides with job all persons trained by Estate Employment service and successfully passed qualification exams (more than 200 employees during 1,5 year). For more productive co-operation State employment Service asks employers to register vacancies and inform about level of salaries.

Professional Career Counselling Centre - PCCC

The main organisation responsible for the vocational orientation and guidance is the Professional Career Counselling Centre, which works under the authority of the Ministry of Welfare's Labour Department. It was created 10 years ago and its main objective is to give consultations to students and unemployed persons on choices pertaining to questions of educational and professional decisions. Professional Career Counselling Centre has main office in Riga and 5 branches- in Daugavpils, Liepāja, Līvāni, Rēzekne and Valmiera.

The Centre’s development plans include, along the already existing 5 branches, consultative chapters will be opened in all districts of Latvia.

Simultaneously it is currently fulfilling functions of methodical and co-ordination centre for professional orientation in Latvia.

The Centre’s basic activities are:

• Student counselling, that is, assisting students to recognise their interests and abilities, introducing young people to profession content and forms of attaining a speciality and regulations and encouraging independent decision making in relation to their education and career selection.

In 1997 7000 school leavers was consulted by Professional Career Counselling Centre that is about 14% of students leaving schools (forms 9 and 12).

• Unemployed consultation. The main objectives - to assist them in selecting the most suitable type of work in the case of re-qualification, as well as in mastering job searching methods and skills to present oneself to the employer. This work is done on contractual basis with the State Employment Service. The 2062 unemployed persons were consulted in 1996 Year, the 2407 in 1997 and already 1530 in the first half of 1998.
• Co-ordination and teaching work in the field of professional orientation in Latvia. The Centre has worked out the Professional orientation concept for the Republic of Latvia, which was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in November of 1994. The centre provides training of VET teachers in vocational counselling and professional orientation. A programme has been worked out and teaching has been done for administrators of Job Searcher Clubs.
• Scientific and methodological work - working out new methods of research and approbation, including the creating of a computerised data base. A profession register is created, where in a standardised way the working conditions are described and which contains psychological distinctions and the requirements of the employed person.

The counselling in the Centre is possible also for students of professional and higher education establishments, employed population and job seekers. The Centre has the mobile consultation group for students of schools in rural areas.

The main directions of PCCC are the following:

• psychological counselling in the field of choice of education and profession and in the field of professional adequacy;
• summarising information on educational establishments and educational programmes

The information on possibilities to acquire new profession or to improve professional skills is very important in the work with adults in the field of professional adequacy or professional counselling. It means that information on offer in the field of professional continuing training is an important part of the consultative work.

The data base on educational programmes and educational establishments in the field of secondary professional education, higher education, professional continuing training is formed and regularly updated by PCCC. This information is structured due to help visitors with multishaped representations in the field of acquiring skills, specialities, education providing firms.

For example, the training courses in Riga in 1998 are organised and offered in the following areas:

• computer training (different kind) - organised by 30 educational firms,
• accounting - 19 firms,
• management/entrepreneurship - 19 firms,
• English - 17 firms,
• German - 14 firms,
• secretary/office employee - 13 firms,
• drivers- 13 firms,
• hairdressers - 11 firms,
• Latvian- 10 firms,
• French- 9 firms,
• waiters/barkeepers - 8 firms.

The unemployed is forwarded from State Employment Service. 44% of all unemployed seeking counselling are without professional education and the main problem for them is right choice of speciality and continuing training courses for acquiring this speciality. Other 56% of the unemployed had professional or higher education but they had difficulties to find job in their specialities. The main problem for them is:

• choice of alternative speciality and appropriate training,
• need for new skills in existing speciality regarding modern technologies (computer skills) or/and modern communication skills (language skills).

PCCC gives more consultations to unemployed women than men (percentage 83:17). It means that retraining and choice of continuing professional courses are more actual problems for women, or women are simply more active in looking for chances.

As a result of consultation, training of new speciality or improvement of skills for existing speciality are recommended for 62% of unemployed seeking consultation.

The main choices of the unemployed after consultations in such cases are the following:

• secretary - 12%,
• cooker/confectioner - 11%,
• accountant - 10%,
• salesman - 10%,
• computer using - 9%,
• entrepreneurship/management - 6%,
• hairdresser -5%,
• waiter/barkeeper -4%,
• specialist of social care - 4%,
• governor/ baby 4%,
• carpenter 3%.

Very often after acquiring new professional skills people have difficulties to find a job. On the one hand, employers give priority to specialists with previous working experience, on the other hand job seekers miss skills necessary for job finding process and for presentation of their own professional potential during the interview with employer. This group of questions is discussed during consultations. A special seminar programme also is worked out by PCCC for acquisition of these skills.

Third Part: Presentation of concrete contexts where possible projects could start development process

Presently a major task in Latvia is to create a system for continuing vocational training, which would be open, flexible and accessible to:

• persons on the labour market
• person returning to the labour market after a longer break
• persons in search of job
• the unemployed

To this effect 2 relevant events recently took place in Latvia:

1. A joint seminar of Chamber of Trade and Commerce (Latvia) and South Westfalen Chamber of Trade and Commerce (Hagen, Germany) on 10 September, 1998 - "The Role of CVT in the encouragement of entrepreneurship"
2. A joint seminar on 23 September for University Rectors, Continuing Education Department directors and top and middle officials from the Ministry of Education and Science - on current needs analysis in University CVT services and on prospective development of National Strategy for restructuring University CVT services in compliance with modern developments in the labour market and in the context of the principles of lifelong learning.

During both seminars a decision was taken to organise further debate in October and November and make specific decisions and conclusions about the role of CVT in the Latvian educational system, about the aims and policy implementation instruments, about urgent developments in the system.

The seminar organised by the Chamber of Trade and Commerce concentrated less on Universities' CVT, it was dealing with a wide spectrum of representation from governmental, regional and non-governmental sector which allowed for drawing basic conclusions already at this stage of the discussion.

In order to develop a flexible continuing education system in the country, the following steps need to be taken:

1. It is necessary to identify CVT needs and fields. At this stage it is not an easy task to make a forecast of the professions in demand and CE directions, as no deep analyses has been made and information has not been collected in a systemic way. Therefore it is necessary to:

• Organise a labour market research within branches
• Collect a detailed information from the employment department and other state institutions

2. Programs in compliance with the labour market demand need to be developed, and quality needs to be assessed. To do this:

• A closer link needs to be established between the employer and the educational workers
• Employers' interest for development of programs needs to be fostered
• Trainers need to acquire methodologies for work with adults

3. Adequate learning methods need to be implemented which would also increase the quality of CVT. To do this:

• Acquisition of practical skills needs to be enhanced
• Use of latest technologies and equipment needs to be encouraged
• Flexible and distance education approaches need to be implemented on a broad scale and become routine practice in CVT

4. The potential clients must be provided with the necessary information:

• The existing information data base on CVT needs to be up-dated
• Information on CE services needs to be advertised more effectively
• A system must to be created for acquiring information on specialities needed on the labour market
• CVT Consultancy services for enterprises and employees need to be provided

5. CVT financing system needs to be created with built in incentives

• Enterprises implementing educational projects must be given tax allowances
• Employers must be given tax exemption on training fees
• Trainers must be given adequate remuneration

6. Vocational training legislation needs to be harmonised

• CVT structure and development models need to be specified
• The tasks and responsibilities of those involved in CVT need to be defined - who can and may be offering CVT
• A decentralised and flexible CVT system needs to be secured
• Vocational Training Centre needs to be re-organised, so that it also fulfils the function of CVT centre

7. System for qualification certifying documents needs to be further developed

• Branch qualification system needs to be developed
• Evaluation criteria - qualification standards need to be developed, if a qualification is to be acquired during CVT process
• The licensing and accreditation procedure needs to be secured
• System for educational documents/certificates needs to be further developed

An important task in the national legislation is to develop a system for awarding CVT qualification documents. An educational establishments might be the ones issuing course certificates; those having taken an accredited program might be issued a diploma. In order to obtain a qualification certificate, an examination should be taken, the evaluation being done by independent commission.

It is of prime importance to organise in Latvia "CVT survey in Enterprises".

Due to the situation in Latvia that currently a debate on CVT is ongoing and specific preliminary conclusions have been drawn during 2 seminars/debates of national importance (1) Chamber of Trade and Commerce and (2) University Sector - the points of view of competent national and regional authorities have been dealt with in Part Three of the current report. It should be noted that in both seminars senior and middle state and municipal administrators participated, as well as high rank representatives from employers' organisations, public organisations, universities, schools of higher education and other relevant institutions. Thus, in Fourth Part of the current report we will be dealing with proposals for ETF and NO network.

1. Supporting the existing networks and developing co-operation between education providers and employers; stimulating also the involvement of employers' organisations
2. Launching initiatives for restructuring higher education CVT services in compliance with the modern labour market developments and the principles of lifelong learning, especially through developing CVT programs in the newly born non-university sector of Latvia's higher education
3. Assistance for CVT institutional development in an organised and systemic way
4. Assistance in training of trainers in CVT (and in VET system as a whole), support for the development of CVT programs
5. Exchange of international experience and dissemination of practice for CVT quality assurance in EU member states and beyond.

1. To be involved in all the activities which have been formulated as proposals from Latvia to ETF