Azerbaijan triples number of people to receive unemployment benefits over COVID-19
By Ofeliya Afandiyeva
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed a decree to increase by three times the number of people who will receive one-time financial assistance from the state over COVID-19, local media reported. Thus, the number of people to receive unemployment benefits reached 600,000.
“We planned that 200,000 unemployed people would receive one-time financial assistance in the amount of 190 manat (about $112) in April-May 2020. However, I believe that we should increase to 600,000 people the number of recipients of such assistance,” Aliyev said during the video conference with Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Population Sahil Babayev and Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov on April 17.
The aid will be provided to socially vulnerable groups of the population, people who lost their work due to the coronavirus, and also people who worked informally, the president said.
Aliyev also instructed his administration to increase the number of people who will be involved in paid social work.
“Initially, we planned that the number of such jobs in 2020 would be 37,000. However, because of the coronavirus, we updated this figure and increased it to 50,000 jobs. I believe that by the end of this year, a total of 90,00 new paid social jobs can be opened.”
It should be noted that a special quarantine regime has been imposed in Azerbaijan until May 4.
Azerbaijan first declared a special quarantine regime in the country on March 23 and then extended it to April 20.
The country also applied restrictions on citizens’ movement, effective from April 5 to April 20, as part of the quarantine regime to curb the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection. Thus, as of April 5, citizens are allowed to leave their place of residence only after obtaining permission. In order to obtain permission, citizens must send a free SMS to number 8103. The restriction was further extended from April 20 to May 4.
Some 1,480 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Azerbaijan so far. Some 865 of them have recovered and 20 people have died.
The country has carried out 102,764 tests to detect new cases of COVID-19.
It should be noted that 31,516 residents have been brought to administrative responsibility due to the violation of the COVID-19 quarantine regime from April 1 to April 19.