MP: Poverty level decreased to 5 percent
By Sara Israfilbayova
MP Musa Guliyev said that the poverty level in Azerbaijan has decreased from 49 to 5 percent since 2001.
The parliamentarian noted that over the past 14 years thousands of new enterprises have been opened, over 1.5 million work places have been created, of which 1.2 million are permanent.
Guliyev stressed that the main direction of Azerbaijan's social strategy is ensuring a high level of satisfaction of the social and cultural needs of the population. As a result of the policy over the past 14 years, the country has built and overhauled over 3,000 educational and more than 600 medical institutions that were equipped with modern equipment.
The MP reminded that the Azerbaijani government always takes care of its citizens, who are in greater need of social protection.
To this end, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population issues targeted social assistance.
However, the government believes that there is a need to move on to a system of self-employment, create conditions for these low-income families to earn money by themselves and to do their own business.
To this end, “Simplified support to family business” (ABAD) under the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations was created in 2016 to support the active participation of citizens in the social and economic development of Azerbaijan, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), increase of employment of the population.
To assist to self-employment the Presidential Reserve Fund allocated 6 million manats ($3.5 million) to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Azerbaijan.
That will ensure the transition from activities on the unsustainable passive social security of low-income families to the activities of sustainable active employment programs.
Earlier, Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Population Salim Muslimov stressed that over the year, the number of people, who turned to employment agencies for work, also dramatically decreased.
As the main reason, can be mentioned measures taken to increase the level of employment, which are realized within the framework of the ongoing economic policy. So, 69,250 people applied to the employment agencies in January-May 2017, whereas the index was 141,600 people in the same period of 2016.
Roughly 31,300 people got new jobs in January-May 2017 and unemployment rate in Azerbaijan is 5 percent.
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