site.btaOECD Analyst Says Bulgaria Could Expect Most Dramatic Reduction of Working-Age People by 2050

Tamar Friedman Wilson, a policy analyst at OECD, said Bulgaria could expect the most dramatic reduction of working-age people by 2050, which will exacerbate labour shortages. Efforts should be made to bring back Bulgarians with a high level of skills, she said at an OECD Accession Forum/Skills Matter for Bulgaria forum held in Sofia on Tuesday.

Wilson noted that when it comes to skills, most people think about technical or vocational ones, but in this case it is about all skills, including cognitive, metacognitive, social, emotional and digital skills. Bulgaria needs to develop its own strategic skills plan. It should be based on concrete objectives, a clear allocation of responsibilities, implementation deadlines and progress monitoring.

Wilson said that unfortunately, a high percentage of young people in Bulgaria are not in employment, education or training.

She cited data showing that adults in Bulgaria have significantly fewer skills compared with other EU Member States, therefore training needs to be made more flexible and accessible to employees.

The OECD also recommends that Bulgaria should provide more help to people from vulnerable groups to find jobs. The share of the budget devoted to training initiatives should increase, Wilson said. Steps should be taken to bring skilled migrants back to Bulgaria and to integrate them.

The OECD recommends setting up a special council for skills policies in Bulgaria.

In conclusion, Wilson noted that skills projections in Bulgaria are not well coordinated, there is no culture of data-driven skills policies. In her view, a departmental centre should be established to assess and analyse data.