Half A Million ‘Parasites’

Iryna Kastsevich must resign.

Five hundred thousand people – is this many or few? On our country scale, this is a little more than 5% of the whole population. 500 thousand people – only one regional center of Belarus has so many people living in it, others have less. 72,5 thousand people serve in the armed forces of Belarus. Almost 345 thousand remain in the military reserve.

500 thousand people live in such popular cities as Dublin or Liverpool. And the Belarusian authorities regarded precisely 500 thousand people as social parasites. Minister of Labor and Social Protection Iryna Kastsevich says that the database of the able-bodied citizens who are not employed in the economy already works. The number of such people impresses – 500 thousand people. This number impresses even more, considering the number of the officially registered unemployed.

Thus, in September 2018, only 8 900 people were registered with the labor registry office. For the period of January to September this year, the whole 89,5 thousand unemployed have accumulated in Belarus. This means, these 89,5 thousand are officially considered unemployed, they are not “parasites”. As for the 500 thousand, who remain unregistered with the labor registry office – in the opinion of the Belarusian authorities, they are “parasites”. So now the question arises: why aren’t those 500 thousand running to the labor office to get registered?

Maybe they don’t trust the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection much. In this case, Iryna Kastsevich must resign. As if 5% of the population disrust the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, this is a pointer of the Ministry’s performance, not of those people being “parasites”. As they say, why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?.

Yulia Sivets, Radio Racyja