Both the Government and the business have to cooperate in order to keep talented young people in our country and to attract back those who graduated abroad. This opinion united the members of the Council of the Women in Business in Bulgaria (CWBB) and the Minister of Labor and Social Policy in the Caretaker Government Mr. Galab Donev during a working lunch.

The labor market trends, the deficit of qualified working force, increasing digitalization of the working processes and the challenges it creates were on the agenda of the meeting. The members of the Council also raised questions related to the obstacles which the business faces applying some of the European directives.

The Minister of Labor and social policy emphasized the Council’ significant role for development and encouragement of the professional growth of women in small and middle business. “Your organization deserves congratulations considering the fact that its members are companies that provide 10% of the country’s GDP”, he said.

The Chairwoman of the CWBB Dr. eng. Boryana Manolova and the CEO of Siemens Bulgaria introduced the Council’s initiative to create a platform to bring back the young people studying and living abroad.

She also added that the Council’s project “Staying in Bulgaria” aimed at the young people who are living abroad but who would like to have their professional development in their own country. “Our idea is to establish connection between Bulgarians abroad and the business and thus to give young people the chance to a career in leading Bulgarian companies as well as to present successful stories of young people who have already have found their place in our companies”, added Ms. Manolova.

Minister Donev mentioned that this is a really good idea giving an example with Ireland where similar encouragement policies had very good results. He introduced to the Council entrepreneurship support provided by opportunities of Human Resources Development Professional Program.

He added that Bulgaria adopted the Gender Equality Act and also presented the priorities of the updated National strategy for encouraging the gender eguality and the measures envisaged to increase women’s participation on the labor market and to reduce the wage gap between the sexes.

He said that Bulgaria is among the top five countries in the world in terms of gender equality in business. Our country ranks fifth with largest number of women (22%) participating in Boards of Directors.

He quoted data from an international research conducted by EY and the Institute for International Economics “Peterson” in which took part 22 000 companies from 91 countries. The participants also discussed the challenges ensuing from the digitalization of the working processes which a large number of the working labor including women is already facing. The digitalization of the working processes raises a lot of questions for the labor market. “As every revolution things happen very fast and people are not always prepared”, said Lidia Shuleva, Managing Partner of the Business Intellect Ltd , former Minister of Labor and Social Policy and a member of CWBB. In response Minister Donev said that the Government should also think how to support that transition in terms of social insurance.

The Council’s members and Minister Donev agreed with the idea that it is necessary to encourage and change attitude regarding life-long education and further qualification. The lack of qualified working force in different professional fields and the necessity of taking urgent measures for solving this problem was also discussed by the participants in the meeting.