Bulgaria Unemployment to Exceed 10% by Year End

Railroad workers have already organized public protests about proposed layoffs. Photo: BGNES.

The rate of unemployment in Bulgaria is set to rise to more than 10% by the end of 2009.

This has been predicted Tuesday by the Director of the National Employment Agency, Rositsa Stelyanova, as cited by BNR.

It is highly probable that unemployment will continue to climb throughout 2010.

The state plans to use money from the budget to preserve 150 000 work places during the course of the next year. By the end of that time, there is the prospect of extensive layoffs in the railroad sector.

Stelyanova said a lot of the affected workforce would be laid off at railroad carriage repair depots in Northern Bulgaria.

Later on Tuesday, Bulgaria's Labor Minister Totyu Mladenov announced the government would invest BGN 1 B into the labor market in 2010 in order to fight unemployment.

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