Training and Work

Chapter Overview

1. Executive Summary

This chapter begins with the clear gap between an Iraq with millions of young people and an Iraq using that potential in productive work. The latest completed national labour force survey, conducted in 2021 with a sample of approximately 16,400 households across all eighteen governorates, put labour force participation at 39.5%, the employment-to-population ratio at 33% and unemployment at 16.5%. Differences were stark: women's participation was 10.6%, compared with 68% for men, and unemployment among young people aged 15–24 was 35.8%, compared with 11.2% for adults. These are not peripheral figures; they measure how much human capital remains outside production or awaits a transition that does not function efficiently. ¹

The most telling indicator concerns young people not in education, employment or training. The NEET rate in 2021 was approximately 36.7%, or more than 3.1 million young women and men; it rose to 52.3% among young women, compared with 22.1% among young men, and 41.1% in rural areas versus 34.8% in urban areas. This is not a homogeneous group: it includes jobseekers, temporary non-participants, caregivers, people who have lost confidence, those needing training, and those facing barriers of transport, protection, information or location. A single programme cannot therefore address them effectively. ²

At the same time, Iraq's labour market is larger than the image of “the state as the only employer”. The survey showed approximately 5.3 million people working in the private sector, compared with 3.261 million in the public sector, but fewer than 10% of private-sector workers were then covered by social insurance. Informal jobs also accounted for 66.6% of total employment. This means that the private sector exists and employs large numbers, but much of it does not offer the contract, protection, stability and career path that would make young people see it as an equivalent alternative to public employment. ³

The Vision therefore rejects reducing the problem to “young people's reluctance to work” or “insufficient training”. A strong preference for public employment may be a rational response to differences in relative pay, security, pensions, status, hours and protection, rather than simply a cultural attitude. Conversely, a qualification itself may become a signal of waiting if unaccompanied by usable skills and a transparent recruitment market. The right reform changes returns: making formal private work safer and more capable of development, connecting training to jobs or productivity, and basing public recruitment on actual need rather than absorbing unemployment.

Iraq does not start from an institutional blank slate. Labour Law No. 37 of 2015 is in force, and the Workers' Retirement and Social Security Law No. 18 of 2023 expanded the legal protection framework to broader categories of workers, including informal workers, the self-employed and contributing family workers through the law's mechanisms. The state is also updating employment policy. The Ministry of Youth and Sports and the International Labour Organization launched the national Job Search Clubs programme, with the first institutional cohort graduating in Baghdad and Nineveh in February 2026. In September 2026, Iraq's Decent Work Country Programme 2026–2029 was launched with priorities including inclusive employment, market-relevant skills, the private sector, protection and rights. ⁴⁵⁶

Recent vocational training developments show that the problem is officially recognised. In July 2026, the Ministry of Planning discussed a roadmap for a vocational training programme “responsive to social, environmental and technological transformations” and reviewed an assessment of training centre performance covering planning, programmes, trainers, trainees, resources and infrastructure. The National Development Plan 2024–2028 also calls for more vocational schools, upgraded workshops and laboratories, and updated curricula connected to labour market needs. The challenge is therefore not inventing a new policy area, but turning scattered initiatives into a national skills system measuring outcomes after courses rather than the number of courses. ⁷⁸

Vision 2045 adopts six connected shifts: from supply-driven to demand-driven training; from course certificates to testable competence; from isolated training centres to training jointly delivered with firms and workplaces; from employment programmes measuring registration to those measuring jobs, retention and income; from a labour market visible only every few years to regular observation and jobs and skills data; and from a culture valuing work by employer type to one measuring it through production, skills, independence and rights.

The Vision does not promise to reduce unemployment by administrative decision. Unemployment is affected by population growth, new labour market entrants, rising participation, the economic cycle and migration, and may temporarily rise even amid healthy improvement if women or previously inactive young people start seeking work. A multi-indicator dashboard is therefore adopted: participation, employment-to-population ratio, youth unemployment, NEET, search duration, training-to-work transitions, formality, social insurance coverage, real wages, retention after six and twelve months, and firms' share in worker training.

The most important methodological decision is that 2021 remains the complete national survey baseline until the 2026 Labour Force Survey results are published. In August 2026, Iraq completed the new survey design and agreed its questionnaire, sample and quality arrangements in preparation for piloting and fieldwork, but results were unpublished at this chapter's data freeze. The Vision therefore does not conflate a newer estimate from an international source with a final national survey. Recent estimates serve as directional evidence; targets are recalibrated when the 2026 baseline appears. ⁹

2. From Quality Education to the Transition to Work

The preceding chapter deliberately stopped its discussion of schooling at a particular boundary: quality education builds reading, mathematics, language, digital literacy, thinking, communication, discipline and the ability to learn, but should not reduce itself to training for an immediate job. This chapter begins at that point. The economy needs another layer above the general foundation: specific occupational skills, practical experience, labour market knowledge, transition to an employer or enterprise, and protection that makes continued work rational.

Conflating education and training harms both. Schools and universities cannot keep up with every rapidly changing programme, machine or job, while vocational centres cannot repair weak reading or missing mathematics in a short course. The Vision therefore adopts a clear division: education builds the “capacity to learn”; training builds the “capacity to perform”; employers provide the “production context”; employment services build the “capacity to transition”; and law and social insurance provide the “capacity to continue”.

3. The Central Question and Methodological Boundaries

The central question is: how can Iraq, between 2027 and 2045, build a training and employment system linking skills to actual economic demand, reducing human capital underutilisation, expanding participation, and increasing formality, protection and productivity, without turning the state into a permanent employer of last resort or training into a means of filling programme quotas?

This chapter addresses technical and vocational training after school and university, apprenticeships and workplace training, employment, search and matching services, active labour market policies, young people's first transition, formality and protection as elements of job attractiveness, and institutional data enabling this sequence to be measured. Enterprise development, investment and credit were covered in Part Four; women's participation in detail is left to the next chapter; migration and recovering expertise are left to this part's sixth chapter.

The evidence base spans several years: 2021 for the latest complete national survey; 2023 for the new social insurance legal framework; 2024–2025 for development plans, the inequality strategy and employment service initiatives; and 2026 for updates to the training roadmap, the Decent Work Programme, Job Search Clubs and new survey design. These years are not silently merged into a single series.

4. Definitions and Measurement Rules

5. Iraq's Baseline: A Large but Underutilised Labour Market

These figures challenge two common narratives. The first is that “nobody works in the private sector”; in fact, it employed more people than the public sector in the survey. The second equates unemployment with all non-employment; in fact, a large share of the population is outside the labour force altogether, and expanding participation may increase jobseeker numbers before employment rises. A government or programme therefore cannot be assessed by the unemployment rate alone.

In occupational structure, the survey recorded service and sales workers at 23.1% of employment, craft and related trades workers at 20.8%, professionals at 16.3%, and machine operators and assemblers at 10.8%. Employment structures also differ across governorates: industry's share was relatively higher in Nineveh and Anbar, agriculture in Salah al-Din and Wasit, while services exceeded half of employment in most governorates. This diversity undermines the idea of a wholly uniform national training curriculum: standards are national, but training portfolios must be local and sectoral. ¹⁰

6. Technical and Vocational Training: From Administrative Supply to Economic Demand

The traditional training problem is that institutions start with what they have: trainers, workshops, curricula and equipment, then seek trainees to fill seats. Vision 2045 reverses the sequence: it starts with current and anticipated jobs, tasks and skills, then determines the training programme, equipment, trainer and duration, and finally measures the transition into employment. A centre unable to update its portfolio becomes a technological museum, however good its building.

The National Development Plan 2024–2028 itself adopts “labour-market-responsive vocational education”, proposing more vocational schools, upgraded workshops and laboratories, innovation centres, and updated curricula and programmes through cooperation between Education, Labour and Planning. In 2026, the Ministry of Planning discussed a new roadmap for vocational training centres after assessing their performance. The Vision does not create a parallel track; it makes these efforts the nucleus of one national system.

Every vocational programme faces a test before funding: is there a job or recurrent demand, what pay level is expected, does training build testable competence, can trainees reach the workplace, are employers willing to host trainees or hire successful graduates, does equipment resemble that used in the market, what is the completion rate, and what share are working after 3, 6 and 12 months? If the provider cannot answer, it is insufficient that the programme is “socially demanded”.

6.1 A skills portfolio, not a rigid list of specialisations

Programme portfolios are reviewed annually at three levels: shared foundational skills such as safety, measurement, technical reading and digital literacy; occupational families such as electrical work, mechanics, construction, services, care and logistics; and short specialist modules that can change with technology. This structure lets trainees progress and accumulate modules rather than return to zero with every change.

6.2 Short training does not mean superficial training

Some skills require two or three years; others require weeks. Quality is judged not by course length, but by whether the time matches the competency. A short course in a specific skill can yield high returns if its entry requirements are clear, its assessment practical and its market known; a long course can be weak if it repeats theoretical lectures without practice.

7. Competency- and Occupation-Based Training

Assessment shifts from “Did the trainee attend 80%?” to “Can the trainee perform the task to a standard?” Every vocational qualification is therefore written in outcome terms: installing a circuit from a diagram and testing safety; operating a machine and reading quality measurements; managing digital inventory; welding to a standard; using a specific application and resolving an error. The certificate becomes a promise to the market rather than an administrative document.

National occupational standards emerge from sector skills councils involving ministries, firms, unions and experts, and are reviewed periodically. “National” does not mean every governorate needs the same programmes; the competency standard is uniform, but seats and training locations follow local demand.

Accreditation must cover trainers, centres and assessors. Trainers need up-to-date professional experience, not just an old qualification; centres need equipment, maintenance and safety; and assessors should not always be the trainers themselves, particularly for qualifications with substantial occupational consequences. Recognition of prior learning allows skilled workers without certificates to demonstrate competence without repeating all the training.

8. Workplace Training and Apprenticeships

The largest gap between a training centre and a job is the real production environment: time pressure, customers, teamwork, safety, quality, breakdowns and responsibility. Government workshops cannot simulate all this. Apprenticeships and workplace training therefore become central rather than supplementary.

Apprenticeships are designed as clear contracts between trainees, firms and the regulating entity: duration, hours, pay or allowance, target skills, supervisor, safety, insurance, assessment and a complaints route. Replacing fully paid workers with successive trainees is prohibited. Public support funds actual training costs and higher-risk groups, rather than providing an open-ended subsidy for wages employers would have paid anyway.

For small firms, “shared apprenticeships” can be organised through associations, chambers or intermediary training providers that handle curriculum and administration while practical work is distributed across several companies. This matters in Iraq because much of the private sector is small or informal and lacks human resources departments.

9. From Training to Employment: Restoring the Missing Link

Many training programmes end at the graduation ceremony. The Vision makes graduation the beginning of measurement rather than its end. Every trainee has a follow-up pathway, and programmes must know: did they obtain an interview, receive an offer, start work, remain employed, experience an income change, and use the skills in which they trained?

Funding is progressively linked to these outcomes with contextual adjustment. A centre serving highly disadvantaged groups is not penalised through raw comparison with one serving job-ready graduates, but every centre must demonstrate improvement and have its added value measured. Nor is “any job” rewarded if it is unlawful, unrelated to a career pathway or unsustained.

9.1 The first job: An experience bridge, not a selection barrier

The greatest paradox for a new entrant is an employer demanding experience from someone never given the chance to acquire it. The Vision therefore establishes a “first-job bridge”: a flexible package combining short training, paid work experience, supervision and documentation of completed tasks. Unpaid training must not become the norm; where a firm receives regular productive output from a young person, a clear employment or apprenticeship relationship must exist under the law.

The cycle in which previous training becomes a prerequisite for new training is prohibited. After each placement, young people receive a verifiable record of tasks, duration and performance level that they can take to another employer. The aim is for experience to accumulate even where the first placement does not become permanent employment.

Recruitment based on practical tests is also encouraged where jobs permit, rather than excessive requirements for years of experience or qualifications unrelated to the work. This widens entry and lets employers see actual ability, while preventing tests from becoming repeated unpaid work.

10. Youth Unemployment: The Problem Is Not a Single Number

Youth unemployment of 35.8% in the 2021 survey is high, but does not by itself explain why transitions stall. Unemployment measures those searching; people not searching at all fall outside this rate. A young person may hold a university degree but reject a low-paid, distant or unprotected job, have a skill but not know where jobs are, or face an absence of jobs because investment is weak.

The Vision therefore separates unemployment into different diagnoses: insufficient aggregate labour demand; skills mismatch; geographical mismatch; lack of initial experience; information and matching barriers; a pay/protection gap making jobs unattractive; waiting for public employment; and personal or family constraints. Each needs a different instrument; any single general programme will waste money on groups that do not need it.

The policy goal is not “zero unemployment”: a dynamic economy requires movement between jobs. The aim is to prevent long-term unemployment at the beginning of working life, shorten transitions, improve first-job opportunities and reduce discouragement-driven labour market exit. Search duration becomes an indicator as important as the overall rate.

11. Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training: NEET

NEET is a warning indicator because a person is accumulating neither educational nor work experience at that time. Putting everyone on a course is not the answer. Services begin by segmenting the group: who needs to complete education, who needs training, who has skills and needs a job, who needs childcare or transport, who has a disability or illness, who needs documents or psychosocial support, and who prefers self-employment?

The Vision uses an “employment case manager” model for higher-risk groups: one contact point connecting education, training, employment, protection and supporting services. This must not become permanent bureaucracy; its purpose is to return individuals to a pathway and then close the case.

Highest priority goes to long-term NEET individuals and younger people who recently left school, because delay has cumulative costs: skills, confidence and networks erode, and the risk of permanent informal employment, emigration or withdrawal grows. ²

12. Expanding Labour Market Participation

A participation rate of 39.5% means a large share of human capital does not enter the labour market under the survey definition. Expanding participation is not a separate numerical objective; if millions begin searching and jobs do not exist, unemployment may rise. The objective therefore connects participation, employment and business growth.

This chapter addresses common general barriers: safe, reliable transport, job information, skills recognition, digital access, flexibility in some forms of work, public services, protection from exploitation and procedures making formal registration possible. Barriers specific to women's participation—care, norms, safety, workplace design and discrimination—are detailed in the next chapter so they are not reduced to a passing paragraph.

Participation should also expand for persons with disabilities through accessible training and work, reasonable accommodation, and assessments based on actual ability rather than assumptions. Expansion must not push people into jobs that fail to preserve dignity or rights; opportunity quality is part of sustainable participation.

13. The Private Sector and Formal Employment

The 2021 baseline of 5.3 million private-sector workers establishes that the sector is not marginal, but high informality and weak social insurance coverage explain part of its attractiveness gap. If private employment means precarious contracts, no pension, leave or protection, and fluctuating pay, while public employment offers greater security, moral appeals alone will not change preferences.

The Workers' Retirement and Social Security Law No. 18 of 2023 provides a foundation for rebalancing by extending protection and adding benefits and broader coverage categories. Success means not issuing the law, but lowering formalisation costs, increasing registration and compliance, and workers actually receiving their rights. The employment platform therefore connects to social insurance registration and digital contracts where lawful and feasible.

Formality must not become a burden that drives small firms out. Registration, contribution and payment procedures are simplified, inspection is risk-based, with corrective pathways for firms capable of reform and firm penalties for serious exploitation. The goal is to make formality easier and more rewarding than informality, not simply raise the cost of violations.

13.1 Pay and career progression: What makes a job sustainable?

An attractive job need not match public-sector pay in every case, but must offer an understandable trade-off: income, learning, promotion, insurance, hours and responsibility. When pay remains unchanged for years without promotion, training or a contract, moving on or withdrawing becomes rational. Firms are therefore encouraged to build occupational grades linked to competence rather than seniority alone.

The labour market observatory publishes anonymised indicative pay ranges by occupation, governorate and experience where data quality permits, not to set wages administratively but to improve negotiation transparency. Young people unfamiliar with market pay are more vulnerable to exploitation; employers unaware of skills shortages may interpret every wage increase as inflation rather than a market signal.

14. From Waiting for Public Appointment to a Portfolio of Work Pathways

The legacy of public employment has led some young people to build their plans around a “budgeted post” rather than a dynamic career. The Vision does not blame individuals for an expectation the state itself entrenched for decades. The rules must change gradually: halt unfunded expansion of permanent jobs, make actual public-sector needs transparent, and demonstrate private pathways offering pay, protection and advancement.

Every young person should see more than one legitimate route: private employment, paid apprenticeships, formal independent professional work, a small business capable of growth, digital or remote work, public service where needed, or a return to learning. Entrepreneurship is not assumed to be an automatic substitute for insufficient jobs; enterprises need markets, finance, skills and risk-bearing capacity, so it remains an option rather than a universal prescription.

The public message changes from “get any qualification and wait” to “build your professional capital”. A person's professional profile brings together education, competencies, experience, training, references and occupational qualifications, and is updated throughout life. Progress then means the ability to move into better jobs rather than obtaining one job.

15. Employment, Job Search and Matching Services

Markets cannot work when information is scattered across pages, personal networks and intermediaries. Modern employment services do not promise jobs; they reduce search costs for both sides, verify opportunities, support CVs and interviews, provide pay and skills information, and direct individuals back to specific training where a skills gap is clear.

The national Job Search Clubs programme, launched by the Ministry of Youth and Sports with the ILO and institutionalised in 2026, provides a practical nucleus: job search, self-presentation and interview preparation skills, and access to current labour market information. The Vision proposes expanding it within one service system rather than creating a competing programme. ⁵

Services are measured by the share reaching interviews, offers and jobs, average transition time and retention rates. The “verified jobs” rate is published rather than raw advertisement numbers, since job platforms can inflate figures with duplicate or fictitious listings.

16. Active Labour Market Policies: What Is Funded and What Is Stopped

State instruments include training, temporary wage subsidies, short-term public works, employment services, apprenticeships, mobility support and assistance to vulnerable groups. The problem is not using these instruments, but continuing them without evaluation. Every new programme incorporates evaluation design from day one and a comparison group where possible, and stops or is redesigned if it fails to generate additional transitions beyond what would have occurred naturally.

Wage support, for example, can give young people their first experience, but may subsidise hiring that would have happened without the state or encourage firms to replace workers when support ends. It must therefore be temporary, targeted at defined groups, conditional on a contract and training, and assessed for retention after the subsidy ends.

Public works are used as a temporary income instrument and a local or crisis response, not as a substitute for sustainable employment. Where possible, they incorporate a skills and safety certificate and recognised experience, so the project's effect on workers does not end when the project does.

16.1 Experimental evaluation: When can we say a programme succeeded?

A post-programme transition alone does not establish causality: the most active beneficiaries may have been those who enrolled in the first place. Large programmes therefore use phased evaluation: a pre-intervention baseline, a comparison group or staggered timing where ethical and practical, follow-up after 6 and 12 months, and cost per additional transition. The result is not separate academic research, but a funding decision: expand what works, redesign middling performers and stop what adds no impact.

Negative results are also published. Concealing a programme's failure protects an institution for a year but costs the state a decade of repetition. The Vision therefore makes the “right to stop” part of governance: closing a weak programme is not an admission of failure, but evidence that the system learns.

17. The Labour Market Observatory and Sector Skills Councils

The state announces specialisations and programmes annually without a sufficiently regular picture of vacancies, wages, skills and transitions. During development plan preparation, the Ministry of Planning referred to supporting the labour market observatory. Since 2024–2025 it has also worked on a strategy to align education outcomes with market needs for 2025–2034, reaching review of the final draft at the end of 2025 before submission. The Vision makes this structure the centre of the information system rather than merely an advisory document. ¹¹

The observatory combines four data types: regular labour force surveys; administrative data from social insurance, employment and training; firm surveys on jobs and skills; and high-frequency market data such as job advertisements, with correction for bias. It issues national, governorate and sector reports, using a unified occupational and skills dictionary.

Sector skills councils must not become honorary bodies. Each reviews occupational standards, identifies shortages, proposes programme updates, supplies practical training places and validates demand indicators. It is measured by actual changes in curricula and recruitment.

17.1 One occupational and skills classification

The observatory cannot link training, jobs and social insurance data if one entity calls an occupation “electrical technician”, another “electrician” and a third “maintenance worker”, without a shared code. Iraq therefore adopts a national occupational classification compatible with international standards, with an updatable Arabic/Kurdish skills dictionary built upon it. The code does not abolish the local name; it is the key connecting systems.

This dictionary also enables analysis of transferable skills. A maintenance worker may possess safety, measurement, diagram-reading and fault-diagnosis skills that allow movement between sectors without starting from zero when an industry changes. Retraining becomes shorter and cheaper because the system knows what individuals already possess and what they lack.

18. Geography and Differences Between Governorate Labour Markets

Iraq is not a single labour market. Differences in agriculture, industry and services across governorates mean a numerically uniform training policy will simultaneously create local surpluses and shortages. “Governorate skills maps” therefore connect population, projects, investment, jobs, mobility and training.

Mobility is itself a labour policy. A job 50 kilometres away may effectively not exist without reliable transport, or if travel costs consume the wage. Some gaps can be resolved through transport support or temporary trainee accommodation; others require firms or training to move to the location. The Vision does not assume workers alone bear the cost of geography.

This approach must prevent “training factories” repeating the same specialisation in every governorate because it is easy to equip. A local centre may specialise in serving a broader regional market where capacity and quality justify it, with appropriate transport, accommodation and guidance.

19. Decent Work and Social Protection as Part of Job Attractiveness

A job that fails to protect workers from injury, exploitation or sudden income loss does not build long-term market confidence. The Vision therefore integrates decent work into employment policy rather than treating it as a separate trade union issue. Labour Law 37 of 2015 and Social Security Law 18 of 2023 provide the legal foundation; the task for 2045 is measurable implementation.

Iraq's Decent Work Country Programme 2026–2029, signed in September 2026 following tripartite consultation between government, worker and employer organisations, and the ILO, sets priorities for inclusive employment, skills, the private sector, rights and social protection. The Vision builds on this framework and calls for its conversion into annual indicators extending beyond 2029. ⁶

Social insurance coverage is not simply a social cost; it is market infrastructure. When workers can move between firms while retaining rights, public employment becomes less attractive as the only route to security. When employers understand their obligations and can meet them digitally, formalisation costs fall.

20. Work as a National Value Rather than Merely a Salary

“Work as a national value” does not mean glorifying hardship or asking poor people to accept unfair pay. It means work derives value from production, service, learning and responsibility rather than the employer's identity. Skilled private workers, productive farmers, freelance programmers, maintenance technicians, nurses, craftspeople, teachers and professional civil servants all add to national capability where their work is useful, organised and protective of rights.

The most dangerous effect of rent dependence is separating income from production in public understanding: the goal becomes a “guaranteed salary” even if the job meets no actual need, while productive work appears a lower-status risk. Culture does not change through speeches; it changes when mastery is rewarded, wages connect to value and skills, promotion paths emerge, private-sector protection becomes real, and the state stops using public appointments to absorb unemployment politically.

Education, training and public media present occupations through their names, competencies, earnings and pathways, rather than dividing them into “respectable jobs” and “lowly trades”. Skills competitions, occupational standards and qualifications make technical achievement visible. The state must not, however, use this message to justify low pay or unsafe conditions; dignity of work requires dignity for workers.

21. Future Skills and the Digital and Green Transitions

Future skills are not a list of “modern” specialisations announced once. They are the system's ability to update itself. Digitalisation, AI, renewable energy, energy efficiency, water management, modern logistics and advanced maintenance will change many jobs' tasks, but most workers will not become programmers. Every occupation needs a digital layer.

Each occupational standard includes appropriate digital foundations: operating devices and reading data, documentation, basic cybersecurity, professional applications and working with decision-support systems. Green occupations are not labels created for marketing; new tasks are measured, such as installing and maintaining solar systems, efficiency auditing, waste management, water measurement and more efficient agricultural practices.

AI enters training through task simulation, personalisation, assessment and job-search assistance, but qualifications remain based on verifiable performance. If automation changes an occupation, the response shifts from protecting the old job title to retraining workers before job loss wherever possible.

21.1 Lifelong learning and reskilling for adults

Skills policy does not end at age 24. A worker reaching forty may lose some tasks to automation, face sectoral change or need a health-related move to lighter work. The system therefore builds a “right of access to reskilling”, not a right to endless free courses. Priority goes to people facing a documented transition or a skills deficit linked to an opportunity.

Short evening or hybrid modules are offered, and prior learning is recognised so workers do not restudy what they already master. Firms can co-finance training in return for incentives linked to skills completion and worker retention, turning training from the first cost cut in a crisis into an investment in continuity.

22. Governance and Financing

System responsibilities are distributed: the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs leads vocational training, employment services and related protection; the Ministry of Education leads school-based vocational education; Higher Education leads colleges, institutes and university transitions; the Ministry of Planning leads forecasting, alignment and the observatory; the Ministry of Youth supports access and services for young jobseekers; and the private sector partners in defining competencies, training and hiring. The problem is not multiple entities, but the absence of a shared output, data and accountability.

A small, high-level “National Skills and Employment Council” is therefore established. It does not run courses itself, but approves standards, publishes the outcome dashboard, resolves conflicts and connects funding to demand. Implementation remains with existing institutions. Any proposal for a large new apparatus reproduces the problem rather than solving it.

Funding is divided into core financing for qualified centres; funding per trainee and competency; transition-outcome incentives; targeted support for high-cost groups; and a competitive fund for equipment and programme upgrades in partnership with firms. Equipment purchases are prohibited before the curriculum, trainer, demand and maintenance plan are demonstrated.

23. International Comparisons: Transfer the Mechanism, Not the Country

The shared lesson is that skills are not an education sector separate from the economy. When the state knows the direction of value chains, it knows where technicians, technical specialists and supervisors are needed; when training institutions know graduate outcomes, they can close weak programmes and open others. There is no abstract “best TVET system” detached from economic structure.

24. Iraq's Labour Market in 2045

In 2045, young people will not need personal connections to discover jobs. They will hold accredited professional profiles, see verified opportunities, know occupational requirements, approximate pay and career paths, enter short training or apprenticeships, and carry their rights when moving. Employers will find workers with specified competencies rather than using general qualifications as weak substitutes for skills.

Vocational centres will operate as part of a market, not government islands: a third or more of training takes place in firms where appropriate to the occupation; equipment is updated according to need; trainers spend periods in industry; and programmes close and open. Public jobs exist where the state needs them, but do not constitute unemployment policy. The private sector competes with the state not only on wages, but on protection, learning and advancement.

Data shift from an event every few years to a cycle: regular surveys, a social insurance register, employment and training data, and firm surveys. Decision-makers know whether a governorate's unemployment reflects weak demand, skills, mobility or participation, rather than sending the same course to everyone.

25. Stages of Transformation, 2027–2045

26. Indicator and Target Dashboard

27. The Implementation Programme Package

28. Implementation, Cost and Financing Matrix

29. Risks and Safeguards

30. Conclusion and the Bridge to Women and Productive Capacity

Iraq cannot turn its demographic window into strength if the education-to-work transition remains a random path governed by credentials, connections and waiting. The preceding chapter built the learning foundation; this chapter built the link turning it into skills, opportunities, contracts, experience and advancement. The equation is not “train and hope”, but identify demand, define competence, train, test, match, follow up and correct.

Success in 2045 is measured neither by training centre numbers, loan numbers nor even falling unemployment alone. It is measured by a greater share of Iraqis entering the labour market, young people finding first jobs faster, lower NEET, more formal and protected jobs, employers finding the skills they need, and workers being able to learn and move rather than remain trapped in one job or one waiting period.

The largest underutilised resource remains visible in the baseline: women's labour market participation was only 10.6% in 2021, and NEET among young women was 52.3%. This gap cannot be addressed merely as a general extension of youth policies, because important barriers relate specifically to transport, care, safety, discrimination, work design and institutions. The next chapter, V2-D05-C04, “Women and Productive Capacity”, therefore takes up the question: how can women's participation move from symbolic empowerment to a real, lasting expansion of productive capacity, household income and the economy?