A Methodology for Assessing Youth Employment Stability After First Job Entry

This study develops a method to measure employment stability among technical school graduates in Uzbekistan after their first recorded formal wage job. It compares National Statistics Committee data for 2022–2025. Overall unemployment fell from 8.9 to 4.8 percent. The recorded number of technical school graduates rose from 52,872 in 2024 to 141,586 in 2025, but the reclassification of educational institutions limits the comparability of these counts. The proposed method links education records and employment contract histories for graduates aged 18–30. Follow-up at 3, 6 and 12 months starts on the date of the first formal wage job recorded within 180 days of graduation. The method separately measures retention with the initial employer, continuous formal wage employment and formal employment on the follow-up date. For graduates who have reached the relevant follow-up date, confirmed positive, confirmed negative and unknown outcomes are counted separately to calculate lower and upper bounds for each share. The approach distinguishes employer changes, returns to formal work after a gap and incomplete observation. Estimating these cohort indicators requires linked individual records.