Kazakhstan Foreign Minister complained of staff shortage

Kazakhstan Foreign Minister has complained about shortage of personnel, Tengrinews.kz reports. “We are facing a shortage of qualified personnel. We are lacking professionals who know rare languages. For example, Malaysia and Indonesia speak Bahasa. Nobody speaks it ... or Swahili, or Amharic language,” Yerzhan Kazykhanov said at the government meeting in the Majilis (Lower Chamber of the Parliament). According to the Minister, the issue of training and employment of professionals is very important. Yerzhan Kazykhanov reminded that after the recent meeting of the Foreign Ministry’s board with participation of Nursultan Nazarbayev, it was decided to allocate additional funds for training of personnel in diplomatic majors, including training of simultaneous interpreters. Besides, Kazakhstan Foreign Minister told about ways a person can get hired by the Foreign Ministry. “There are three ways a person can get a job in the Foreign Ministry: the first way is through a contest, the second way is through the state service reserve and the third way is via a transfer from another state authority to the Foreign Ministry,” Yerzhan Kazykhanov told the Majilis deputies. By Assel Satayeva