21 October 2003 09:41
Chechen official calls for investment to reduce 70-per-cent unemployment
Moscow, 21 October: Chechnya has an able-bodied population of 416,000, of whom about 70 per cent are jobless and
receiving unemployment benefit of R550 a month, according to figures given to ITAR-TASS today by Kazbek Epindiyev, a
chief of department at the Chechen Republic Ministry of Labour.
Over 92,000 people in Chechnya are in employment, not counting the security and law-enforcement agencies, he said.
The largest employers are education with 29,700, healthcare with 14,000 and agriculture with 11,000.
The prevailing conditions in the republic have forced the government to concentrate mostly on creating low-cost
employment, Epindiyev said. For example, one job in clothes-making "costs" R200,000-300,000. There just is not
the money to create the requisite amount of employment in expensive sectors such as oil and gas, where each new job
costs over R2m, Epindiyev explained.
So, he concluded, "to tackle such an important social issue as employment we would need several billion roubles
in capital investments. Without them, the work to stabilize the socio-political situation and restore the economy will
encounter serious difficulties."
[ITAR-TASS news agency] |
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