Minister: Less people apply to employment agencies in Azerbaijan
By Aygul Salmanova
The number of those applying to Azerbaijan’s employment agencies decreased by 1.7 times in 2017, Salim Muslumov, the minister of labor and social protection of the population, said at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers chaired by President Ilham Aliyev dedicated to the results of socioeconomic development of the country in 2017 and future objectives.
He said that stability was maintained in the country’s labor market, where 111,000 young people entered in 2017.
“Last year, the number of registered labor contracts increased by 44,700 people,” he said. “The Commission for the Regulation and Coordination of Labor Relations played an important role in this. Reduction in the number of applications to the employment agencies is one of the indicators of stabilization in the labor market. Thus, if 204,000 appeals were made to the employment agencies in 2016, their number decreased by 1.7 times in 2017 and amounted to 118,000.”
Muslumov noted that the positive trends in the labor market have led to an increase in fees for compulsory social insurance.
“The volume of social payments in the non-oil sector amounted to 1.338 billion manats ($791 million) in 2017, which is 10.8 percent or 130 million manats ($76 million) more than in 2016,” he said. “The budget forecast was executed by 103 percent. The volume of revenues allowed timely financing of expenses for pensions and social payments in the amount of 3.4 billion manats ($2.01 billion)”
The minister added that as a result of the reforms carried out last year, the pension system was cleared of non-insurance elements, liabilities of the pension and insurance system were completely separated from the state budget liabilities, the “open account” principle was applied in the individual accounting system and the working pensioners were given the opportunity to increase their pension every 72 months by using funds accumulated in their personal accounts.
“In six months (since the amendments to the legislation were made), 17,430 people used this right and their monthly pensions have increased by an average of 146 manats ($86), which means that additional 2.5 million manats ($1.4 million) are spent monthly for the payment of these increments to pensions,” he said.
A continuous increase in participation rate has been demonstrated in the labor market of Azerbaijan. The increasing participation rate is related with high spillover effects from the energy sector on other sectors of the economy, such as the construction and service industries, as well as an increase in self-employment activities of small landowners and small to medium-sized businesses.
The country is the world’s number 17 in Labor market efficiency pillar, in terms of the efficient use of talent, outclassing Israel, Ireland, Belgium, Austria and Estonia, according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018 published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Unemployment rate in Azerbaijan is 5 percent, while the poverty level equals to 5.3 percent.
In 2016, some 56,631 unemployed and job seeker citizens were provided with suitable jobs by the State Employment Service under the Labor Ministry. Roughly 36.2 percent of them, as well as 27 percent out of 1,147 people involved in paid public works, were young people.
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