Myasnikovich: No mass unemployment in Belarus

MINSK, 11 January (BelTA) – There will be no extensive lay-offs and mass unemployment in Belarus, Prime Minister of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich said at a session of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers which considered the draft government employment assistance program for 2011. The head of government stressed that Belarus was able to preserve employment and provide social security of the population amid the global economic crisis. Thus, registered unemployment in Belarus was 0.7% of the workforce. Just to compare: this figure was 7.9% in Great Britain, 9.4% in Poland, 9.2% in Russia and 13% in Lithuania. “The state should take care of employment concerning high-efficiency labor. Quantitative indicators should stand along with qualitative,” the Premier emphasized. Mikhail Myasnikovich drew attention to the need to increase productivity. “We need to increase it 1.6 times without reducing employment in the economy. Here we are talking about creating one million jobs with added value of $60,000 per employee in terms of purchasing power parity. Today, in Belarus this figure is 2,45 times lower than the average in the EU. The rate of growth which we need to ensure in Belarus in the next five years is 2,6 times,” the Prime Minister said. The draft program provides for the establishment of 175, 000 jobs, with a quarter of them to be organized in small towns and rural areas. The majority of new jobs is expected to be set up in large cities. However, material production has the greatest potential in terms of productivity. “In this regard, modern requirements to blue-collar workers are very demanding,” said the Prime Minister. Hence there is a question as to how organize the retraining and training of personnel in the light of problems of innovation development of the economy and shortage of skilled workers, engineering specialists? Mikhail Myasnikovich believes that the biggest problems may appear in towns with unstable town-forming enterprises. Here, the labor market depends on the operation of such enterprises. Therefore concerted action is needed. The Prime Minister stated that the draft state program focuses on the towns with town-forming enterprises.

БЕЛТА