Assessment and approval of qualifications from the successor states of Yugoslavia

Currently Austria is confronted with an increasing number of job seekers from the successor states of Yugoslavia. In this context applicants present training certificates from their country of origin which should serve the Public Employment Service Austria as an evidence of their qualifications or working skills. Due to the fact that the vocational training systems differ between the successor states of Yugoslavia as well as from the Austrian training system, those certificates are not even difficult to evaluate for the PES but also for Austrian employers. According to this background two main questions derive:

(1) How do the vocational training systems in the successor states of Yugoslavia work?
(2) Are certificates from these countries to be seen as equal to certificates from the Austrian vocational training system?

To answer these questions, a series of interviews with experts for vocational education and training in the successor states of Yugoslavia are carried out.