BAKU, Azerbaijan. Nov. 18
By Fakhri Vakilov-Trend:
International Press Center of Uzbekistan’s Central Election Commission hosted a press conference with representatives of political parties and the Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations, Trend reports citing Uzbek media.
During the event, Deputy Minister of Uzbekistan’s Employment and Labor Relations Erkin Mukhiddinov said that next year, unemployment benefits in the country will more than double.
“The unemployment benefit in 2020 will more than double and amount to $65.7 a month,” Mukhiddinov said.
In April this year, Uzbekistan’s former Minister of Employment and Labor Relations Sherzod Kudbiev, said that Uzbekistan would increase unemployment benefits, equating it to the minimum wage.
“We are now radically increasing the allowance to the level of the minimum wage. Moreover, we are obliged to employ people in order for the state to bear a constitutional obligation to its people. If we fail to do this, we must pay the allowance. We need to increase unemployment benefits so that economic leverage will start working,” Kudbiev said back then.
Furthermore, he emphasized that now almost no one is applying for benefits, because it does not fulfill an economic function.
According to the Republican Scientific Center for Employment and Labor Protection of Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations, the unemployment rate in Uzbekistan for the first nine months of this year amounted to 8.9 percent of the economically active population, which is 0.1 percentage points lower compared to the same period 2018 year.
The highest unemployment rate was recorded in Surkhandarya region - 9.3 percent, and in Kashkadarya, Samarkand, Syrdarya and Fergana regions - 9.2 percent, while the lowest - in Tashkent (7.5 percent).
The population in need of employment is 1.337 million people. The unemployment rate was 14.9 percent among youth (16–29 years) and 12.5 percent among women.
For the first nine months of 2019, Uzbekistan’s State Employment Promotion Fund allocated subsidies and grants in the form of irrevocable financial assistance to 10,066 unemployed in the amount of over $939,000, including subsidies to employers for vocational training, material support for those employed from among socially vulnerable segments of the population, assistance to the unemployed in establishing entrepreneurial activities and allocation of individual land plots.
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