Bulgaria Spent BGN 1.5 B to Boost Employment by 2% in 2003-2011

Subsidized job creation is costly and inefficient, according to a survey of Bulgaria’s Ministry of Labor and Social Policy on the impact of the government money spent on boosting employment rates.

In the period 2003-2011, Bulgaria spent BGN 1.461 B to increase employment by 2.3% on average, or by slightly over 52 000 people.

According to data of the National Statistical Institute (NSI), in end-2011 a total of 2.3 million people had jobs and the employment rate stood at 46.6%.

The survey was conducted among 1000 employers and unemployed who had taken part in the measures in 2011 in order to evaluate their performance on the labor market three years later.

The full study is yet to be published, according to Sega daily.

As regards the programs that were applied in the course of one year, 2011, around half of those who took advantage of subsidized employment measures failed to find jobs after the expiration of the scheme.

The relatively high rate of success, at over 50%, was mainly due to measures for youths of up to 29 of age, where the rate of success stood at over 80%.

Despite the discouraging results, Bulgaria’s Labor Ministry believes that people enrolled in these programs had 60% greater chance of finding a job that those not included in the measures.

In 2011 the budget earmarked for these programs stood at BGN 57.7 M, compared to a total of BGN 73 M earmarked for the purpose in 2015.

Programs targeting young people prove to be the most successful ones and the older the participants are, the smaller their chance is of finding a job after the expiration of the scheme.

Graduates found it twice easier to find work than people with primary education or lower skills.

The largest net impact was generated by the program “Career Start” for young people with no professional experience, followed by “Retirement Help” targeting people lacking up to 1 year to fulfill age or experience requirements to retire.

The “Melpomena” program for finding jobs for unemployed at theatres was also estimated as successful.

Measures for encouraging employers to create jobs for unemployed lone parents were also very successful, with over 85% of the participants finding jobs afterwards.

All of the people who participated in measures related to entrepreneurship launched their own business afterwards, according to the Labor Ministry.

The most inefficient program, “From Social Assistance to Employment”, has been terminated as of 2015 due to the fact that only 13.4% of the participants found jobs afterwards.

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