OREANDA-NEWS. January 20, 2011. There will be no extensive lay-offs and mass unemployment in Belarus, Prime Minister of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich said at a session of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers which considered the draft Government employment assistance program for 2011.

The head of Government stressed that Belarus was able to preserve employment and provide social security of the population amid the global economic crisis. Thus, registered unemployment in Belarus was 0.7% of the workforce. Just to compare: this figure was 7.9% in Great Britain, 9.4% in Poland, 9.2% in Russia and 13% in Lithuania.

“The state should take care of employment concerning high-efficiency labor. Quantitative indicators should stand along with qualitative,” the Prime Minister emphasized.

Mikhail Myasnikovich drew attention to the need to increase productivity. “We need to increase it 1.6 times without reducing employment in the economy. Here we are talking about creating one million jobs with added value of USD60,000 per employee in terms of purchasing power parity. Today, in Belarus this figure is 2,45 times lower than the average in the EU. The rate of growth which we need to ensure in Belarus in the next five years is 2,6 times,” the Prime Minister said.

The draft program provides for the establishment of 175, 000 jobs, with a quarter of them to be organized in small towns and rural areas. The majority of new jobs is expected to be set up in large cities. However, material production has the greatest potential in terms of productivity. “In this regard, modern requirements to blue-collar workers are very demanding,” said the Prime Minister. Hence there is a question as to how organize the retraining and training of personnel in the light of problems of innovation development of the economy and shortage of skilled workers, engineering specialists?

Mikhail Myasnikovich believes that the biggest problems may appear in towns with unstable town-forming enterprises. Here, the labor market depends on the operation of such enterprises. Therefore concerted action is needed. The Prime Minister stated that the draft state program focuses on the towns with town-forming enterprises.

Belarus’ employment policy priorities are shifting from artificial preservation of jobs to making employment more efficient, Marianna Shchetkina, Minister of Labor and Social Security, said at a session of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers.

The new Government program has a new section, namely, the assistance to employers in the context of economic modernization, Marianna Shchetkina said.

According to her, the main feature of the new program is the shift towards cooperation with employers. This is due to the fact that some enterprises employ more workers than it is economically justified. Along with the labor surplus, there is still a deficit of skilled workers and professionals. There is a problem of aging staff, lessening appeal of manufacturing jobs for young people, a high level of personnel turnover (in 2010 36,000 people quit on their own, about 45,000 on the agreement of the parties). Training and staff development programs are not very efficient, the Minister of Labor and Social Security.

“If the program in 2010 focused mainly on problems of part-time employment, preservation of jobs and labor collectives, the goal in 2011 is to provide jobs in the context of economic modernization, to employ those who are not able to compete equally with other workers in the labor market,” Marianna Shchetkina said.

The draft program provides for preventive measures to reduce social costs in the context of economic modernization and upgrade of working places. Amendments and additions will be introduced to relevant laws.

The program stipulates an increase in scholarships for retraining people who have lost their jobs due to modernization. Employment assistance services are to cover the expenses of employers on organizing additional training courses for employees who are at the risk of losing a job. Among other plans is to increase the size of subsidies for the unemployed who start their business related to implementing new technologies in production.

The Labor and Social Security Ministry will provide scientific support to the enterprises that are restructuring their manufacturing schemes. Employers will receive assistance regarding the personnel policy, programs of socially-responsible restructuring, additional training courses for their staff.

The provisions on HR departments of organizations are to be revised. They will be made more responsible for elaboration and implementation of measures to increase the quality of personnel and labor stimulus.