PM: Russia must refresh ’08-’10 labor support mechanism

GORKI, Moscow Region, Jan 26 (PRIME) -- The Russian government must refresh the mechanisms of supporting the labor market which it used in 2008-2010, as companies will have to fire people if the economic situation does not improve, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting with deputy prime ministers on Monday.

“If the economic situation does not improve, some companies will have to make staff decisions. Some of them will make a decision to lay off people, some of them will support those who may lose a job and give them a chance to find a new one,” Medvedev said.

“Any way, the mechanism we used in 2008-2009 and partially in 2010 must be fully prepared. I mean, it will be added to the anti-crisis plan we are to approve.”

The government will give regions 50 billion rubles of subsidies in 2015 to solve labor problems, he said. The general situation on the market is under control and there are no critical problems, though it must be monitored, Medvedev added.

There is yet no trend for higher unemployment, but the situation is about to worsen.

“We have some sort of a safety net. We currently have 873,000 officially unemployed, while there are 1.304 million vacancies on the labor market,” Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said during the meeting.

“The unemployment is not increasing, it stays at the level of 5.1%, it is a low level and for now we see no (upward) trend; but we understand that the situation may change.”

(63.3930 rubles – U.S. $1)

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