Unemployment

BELGRADE - The proposed changes stipulating that employers will be temporarily exempt from paying a part of the income tax and contributions for newly hired people will not help resolve the issue of unemployment or deliver a major blow to the grey economy.

The number of unemployed Bulgarians under 29 years of age fell by almost 7,000 since the beginning of 2014, but still remains high - more than 68,000 people countrywide.

In the first months of 2014, about 5,450 young people have found a job or an internship through subsidized employment, while 15,000 were employed in the real sector, Dnevnik reports.

Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras speaks in Athens Tuesday during a televised presentation of the development framework of the Greek economy, ahead of the Eropean elections sheduled for May 25.

Experts from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) expect that in 2014 the unemployment in the country will stop rising, and might even decrease. 

The annual report of the BAS on unemployment and inequality trends in Bulgaria found, that the employment rate would rise very slightly in 2014 and will entirely depend on the growth of the GDP. 

Bulgaria maintains significant levels of unemployment and gray economy, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Laszlo Andor believes.

He also announced that an additional EUR 50 M will be granted to Bulgaria to tackle youth unemployment under a special EU-wide program.

PM Plamen Oresharski and the European Commissioner Laszlo Andor have discussed the future of the Bulgarian pension reform, as well as the structural unemployment, Monday.

The European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Laszlo Andor has met with Prime Minister Oresharski earlier Monday during his two-day visit to Sofia.

Unemployment rates in Bosnia and Herzegovina have reached 44.5% by end-March, with 555,452 people registered in the local employment centers.

Meanwhile, a total of 5,440 people became unemployed, while businesses opened just 2,999 job positions in Q1 of 2014, Bulgarian BGNES news agency reports.

Greece's jobless rate improved in February to its lowest rate in more than a year, data showed on Thursday, in another sign the Greek economy is emerging from a crippling six-year slump.

Greece's unemployment rate dipped to 26.5 percent in February from a downwardly revised 26.6 percent in the previous month, the country's statistics agency ELSTAT said on Thursday.

An online survey carried between June and April 2014, including 7,555 respondents from across Southeast Europe, show Albania has the lowest number of unemployed young people actually seeking a job.

Only 36 per cent of the respondents in Albania said they were actively seeking employment, followed by Macedonia and Montenegro, where the figures were 38 and 39 per cent.