UPDATE: Russian labor minister wants 10 bln rbl for labor market help

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MOSCOW, Feb 9 (PRIME) -- The Russian government must allocate up to 10 billion rubles to support of the labor market in its anti-crisis plan for 2016, Labor Minister Maxim Topilin said on Tuesday during a meeting with the Association of European Businesses’ (AEB).

“Concerning the amount of funds… the Economic Development Ministry introduced a financing amount of 5 billion rubles. We are offering to consider up to 10 billion. Let’s look, the government shall decide,” Topilin said.

The minister said that unemployment will not exceed 6% in 2016. “We think that it will be not higher than 6% on average… during the year… There was no increase in December. We hope that it will not exceed 6% a year – this is the average annual figure.”

In December 2015, unemployment stood at 5.8% of the economically active population, or 4.4 million people. Topilin said that there are also about 2 million part-time employed people.

Topilin said that the situation on the labor market is “quite calm” and unemployment is “not too high.”

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