Labor «illegals» will be detected :: Charter'97 :: News

Reinforced measures will be taken against employers for employment without concluding labor contracts, Economicheskaya Gazeta informs. These cases will be detected through purposeful checks conducted by state labor inspection, tax inspection, bodies of internal affairs and local authorities. The measures were developed by the government for involving the economically passive population into labor activities.

The ”number of the employed“ indicator has been included for the first time into the most important parameters of socio-economic development of Belarus forecasting for 2007. The annual increase of this number is envisaged around 4375-4448 thousand people in 2007(according to the assessment of the republican ministry of statistics and analysis, this number for the previous year comprised 4362 thousand people). The total employment increase by 10-11% in comparison with 2005 is envisaged, thus amounting to 4740-4775 thousand people.

Moreover, the measures of the employment number increase were first included into the state program of population employment support, which draft project was adopted at the council of ministers meeting 13 February. The actions aimed at attracting the population between jobs into economic activities are determined along with their regional distribution. Tasks have been first set up for assisting the employment not only of the unemployed but also of those who are between jobs.

Definitely, in order to attract free labor force it is advisable to have a total representation of their structure and features. Calculation of the economically passive population (i.e., those who are capable of working but do not work for different reasons) has been a stumbling stone for several years. Available figures differ in the range of 500 thousand to 1500 thousand people.

The amount of people between jobs is estimated as 736 thousand people. These may be conventionally divided into two major groups. The first group can be represented by people looking for a job or by those working without the labor contract, and the second-by those who are not eager to work.

The first group (totaling 372 thousand people) is of interest from economic point of view. It comprises, in particular, those who leave the area of their residence for working without registration of their employment. They, by the way, comprise a quarter of able- to- work population (male population, in particular). Two thirds of the labor migrants are employed within Belarus, and one third (117 thousand)- outside the country, among these 84% work in Russia, the other- in Baltic countries, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, etc. These people may be considered either the potential base for increasing number of the unemployed or as the reserve for increasing the employment number.

The task is to prevent the mass inflow of this group representatives with the unemployed status to the state employment service. If we imagine the hypothetical situation that all those people will simultaneously express their desire to become employed (and the number of vacancies in the data base is around 50 thousand), the level of the registered unemployment will exceed the socially permitted limits. Thus, how can a part of the able-to-work population be returned to the “lap” of the legal domestic economy and how can the attractive conditions to those who contribute into the GDP of the other countries, Russia, in particular be created?