Unemployment remains the Government's main concern and a primary cause of poverty. The extreme severity of the last three winters revealed the vulnerability of the rural economy and accelerated the migration of people seeking better access to social services and employment opportunities from the remote aimags to urban areas, particularly to Ulaanbaatar. Thanks to the laws on labour, the Law on exporting and importing of labour forces, passed in 2002, and the establishment of funds to support employment, the labour market is showing a good tendency to improve.
The National Program on Employment Promotion was passed in 2002 and the National Conference on Employment was held, which were significant steps in defining the outlook of labour market policy. Also, a law on vocational education was newly adopted. As a result of experimental implementation of a program in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), preconditions for building of a structure of vocational training were set up. Money from the fund is spent on building work positions, vocational training, supporting employment and granting small loans.
The State often supports the labour of disabled people. In 2003 the Government spent 5.7 billion tugrigs on measures to support employment. As a result of these steps in 2000-2003 demand for jobs doubled and the number of people involved in professional retraining increased 4.7-fold on 1999. Employment is now increasing not only inside but also outside the country. Today 2,154 people are working in South Korea, 475 in Japan, 80 in the Czech Republic and 15 in Germany. The number of the officially registered people working abroad is increasing every year.
