"In Macedonia, unemployment and levels of relative poverty are very high. The country is putting forward measures to increase the employability of the long-term unemployed and first-time job seekers by reducing illiteracy and providing mandatoryprimary and secondary education. Simultaneously striking is that the number ofpeople enrolled in higher education is very high and on the increase but, unfortunately, this is only deceptively consolatory: for this approach to become a longterm policy for labour quality improvement, it needs to be coupled with educationpolicy changes and assessments of and adaptation to the labour market. In orderto lessen trade-offs between social, employment and education policies, these actions should be considered: an increase in co-ordination between key institutions;ensuring their coherence; strategic, realistic planning in the short-, medium- andlong-term; regular research and analysis; the design and full utilisation of monitoringmechanisms for the implementation of policies that will enable timely and promptreactions; and, finally, the sufficient allocation of financial and human resources."

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