Kazakhstani youth prefer launching their own businesses rather than working for someone else

A mass exodus of Kazakhstan’s youth from regular employment to entrepreneurship is expected to further decrease the already small share of unemployed young people (4%), according to Kassymkhan Kapparov, an economist and the founder of the website Ekonomist.kz. He made this statement during the Kazakhstan Growth Forum.

Kapparov revealed that more than 200,000 young people have entered the job market in the country (he didn’t clarify in what period) due to a demographic boom, as more than 500,000 people are born in Kazakhstan each year. The unemployment rate among youth is just 4%, according to official statistics. However, about 20% of young people are self-employed, while another 20% work in fields outside of their professions.

«We’ve seen that many people have switched to entrepreneurship over the past several years. Young people no longer want to work for someone else; they prefer to start their own businesses. I believe that this trend toward mass entrepreneurship is an advantage for Kazakhstan. It can help create new jobs. Of course, these new jobs aren’t always very productive. However, the micro-entrepreneurship trend can be a solution for youth unemployment,» Kapparov said.

Whether this trend will continue to rise depends on several factors: simpler rules for opening businesses, better marketplaces, online payments and online education that often provides opportunities to learn new skills for free.

According to the expert, more than 4 million people are employed by small and medium-sized businesses in Kazakhstan. The share of this segment in the national GDP has grown to 36%, a record high. Furthermore, the government plans to boost this rate to 40% within five years, with the share of medium-sized businesses expected to reach 15% of the GDP.