Mihai Seitan: It is essential we keep unemployment rate low

The government will do everything in its power to create the necessary conditions for exiting recession, Minister of Labour, Family and Social Protection, Mihai Seitan, on Saturday said, while referring to the importance of creating new jobs, the need for re-qualification programmes and increasing of retirement age up to 65.

"We are still struggling to exit the economic crisis, and we are doing everything we can to create the necessary conditions for exiting recession. Thus, the essential matters right now are creating jobs, maintaining unemployment rate low and prevent any choice of growth in it. We hope that investments we launched through the state budget will contribute to creating new jobs in the field of infrastructure and to cut the unemployment figure. Also, we want to help the industry more, through launching such programmes as the Ramshackle car scrappage programme, which went well so far," Seitan said.

The Minister of Labour also mentioned the introduction of the short-time working scheme as a modality to cut spending on wages and contributions to social security, stating also that, since the beginning of the year, over 1,700 companies nationwide requested approval to switch approximately 47,000 employees to a short-time working scheme.

Other measures launched by the Government and brought into talks by the Labour Minister were exemption from paying contributions to social security offered by the state to companies that hire unemployed, and retraining programmes for people in search for a job.

AGERPRES