Last Monday, the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, passed the Projoven Law, which seeks to enhance the Access of young people to formal and good quality jobs.

The Law aims to promote employment creation and youth entrepreneurship through the development of measures to eliminate the barriers that prevent young people from entering the labour market and have a good start of their working lives.

The new law focuses on the three following key points:

Entrepreneurial youth

• Creation of a seed capital fund to encourage and finance young people’s startups.
• Exemption of payment to register young people’s companies.
• Tax benefits for small companies.

Young talent for the State

• Paid internships in Ministries and top level public entities.
• Accelerated career plan in large companies of the State.
• Creation of jobs in public entities that do not require previous experience.
• Promotion of young people working in the private sector.
• 4% reduction of contributions for companies that hire unexperienced young people.  l
• Creation of the National System of Professional Practices.

Youth for Peace

• Elimination of the requirement of the military ID to start working.
• Payment and discount options for the military ID costs.
• Up to 80% reduction on fines and up to 60% discount on military compensation fee.

The Colombian government has also executed other policies to promote employment creation, such as investments in the construction sector through housing projects and projects on transport infrastructure.

In addition, the First Job Law has been implemented, granting incentives to companies that hire unexperienced young people, together with the 40 thousand first jobs program, which provides other benefits to companies that hire young unexperienced workers.

These policies have been showing positive results. For instance, the youth unemployment rate has go down almost 5%, from 20% in 2010 to 15.3% in 2015.

Source: Presidencia de Colombia