25.01.09

Specialists say that employment programs in Russia this year may require additional 30 billion rubles or so. Exact sums will be calculated when the federal authorities are given all relevant information on population support programs in the regions.

As matters stand, the federal budget includes 43.7 billion rubles for subsidies to the regions grappling with the increasing unemployment. The Rostrud (employment federal agency) refuses to change its forecasts for 2009 for the time being. Its specialists remain confident that only 2.2 million Russians (or 2.9% of the economically active population) will apply for registration as the unemployed throughout Russia in 2009.

There were 1.5 million officially registered unemployed in Russia when the year began (2% of the economically active population). Add here about 200,000 more who were unemployed de facto, people on a leave without pay. According to the Statistics State Committee, however, there were 5 million unemployed (6.6%) in the country in early 2009. Unlike the Rostrud, this structure took into account all job-seekers and not just the officially registered ones.

The Economic Development Ministry updated its unemployment forecasts yesterday and came up with 5.5 million unemployed in Russia this year. A source in the ministry said that the existing employment programs could only apply to over 2.5 million.

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Source: "Gazeta"