Gen Z and the Labor Market: Five STARforums Spark Regional Dialogue Across the Western Balkans
In June 2025, five STARforums were held across the Western Balkans — in Tirana, Podgorica, Pristina, Skopje, and Belgrade — under the theme: "Challenge vs. Opportunity: Gen Z in the Labor Market?", building on the pilot event hosted in Sarajevo in December 2024.
Born after 1996, Generation Z is the world’s first truly digital generation, and by 2030 they are expected to make up 30% of the global workforce. Over the course of their careers, they may change up to 17 jobs and 5 completely different professions — many of which don’t even exist yet.
The question is: how do we prepare them for a constantly evolving labor market?
In the Western Balkans, approximately 1.7 million Gen Z youth are either still in education, unemployed, or belong to the vulnerable NEET category. On top of these local challenges, the global transformation driven by AI is expected to reshape the world of work — with the World Economic Forum forecasting the disappearance of up to 100 million jobs by 2030.
Against this backdrop, the STARforums provided a timely space for dialogue among key stakeholders of the youth employment ecosystem — including institutions, the business community, civil society, and young people themselves.
A central highlight of the forums was the promotion of the new regional STAR.study platform, first launched in Sarajevo in December 2024, and now available in all Western Balkan languages. Key features of the platform include:
- an interactive map of 1,000+ stakeholders in youth employment and career development,
- the first episode of a video series on future jobs and career guidance — designed to be used as an educational tool in both formal and non-formal settings — with 20 additional episodes to follow throughout the summer.
More than 200 participants and 64 speakers took part in the forums, discussing seven key policy recommendations aimed at strengthening youth career development, facilitating their transition into the labor market, and encouraging them to build their futures in the region. These recommendations will be compiled into the upcoming STAR Policy Guide, a long-term advocacy and benchmarking tool to track progress across the region. The key policy proposals include:
- Developing a modern career guidance system in partnership with the private sector
- Providing internships, mentorship, and student work opportunities
- Establishing a system for individual assessment of unemployed youth by public employment services, in order to generate accurate inputs for tailor-made support programs
- Innovating reskilling and adult education programs with faster, more agile formats
- Designing youth-friendly employment measures through cross-sector collaboration, especially under the EU Youth Guarantee
- Supporting the development of entrepreneurial competences through both formal and non-formal education
- Offering holistic support for youth-led businesses — including mentoring, training, incubation, and funding
The STAR.study regional initiative was launched by the Social Innovation Incubator “Munja” from Sarajevo, which has been active in this field for over 23 years, in partnership with local actors across the Western Balkans and with the support of the Open Society Foundation – Western Balkans.