10% Unemployment Expected In Bulgaria by 2010

Yet another set of disturbing figures, yet no real surprise to what I see on a day-to-day basis here. There is no disposable income form Bulgarian people and no spending going on in restaurants, shops and consumer goods. This leads to bad business and more unemployment; a vicious spiral that continues to impress itself in the Bulgarian economy. 2010 seems to be the truing point, but at the moment I can’t see how that will improve beyond this.

Unemployment in Bulgaria could exceed 10 per cent by the end of 2009, and is not expected to drop again before the end of 2010, according to the National Employment Agency. On September 29 2009, the Economic and Social Council met Labour and Social Policy Ministry leadership to present the council’s analysis of Bulgaria’s unemployment situation.

Youth unemployment emerged as a serious issue, with a quarter of people aged between 15 and 25 neither working nor studying, while the number of people currently unemployed was close to double that for which labour market support measures had been provided, Labour and Social Policy Minister Totyu Mladenov said. Mladenov said that his ministry would propose further measures such as a three-month addition to the current period during which unemployment benefits were paid, but only those who registered for training courses would be eligible to benefit.

The Economic and Social Council report said that some measures provided for by the Employment Promotion Act because they were ineffective, Dnevnik reported. Plamen Dimitrov of the Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions said that ineffective programmes included one to give people younger than 29 training in computer skills, when most of them already had the basic knowledge required. The council report said that additional funds should be allocated to the Labour and Social Ministry’s anti-crisis programme, because funds allocated for the programme for this year had been used up.

Source: www.sofiaecho.com