Hatzidakis: Vocational training for 500,000 unemployed and employed

“We give priority to the employment of young people. We now have twice the budget of Recovery Fund and the new NSRF as well as two different tools with distinct actions” emphasized the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Kostis Hatzidakis during the briefing of the Special Standing Committee on Equality and Youth of the Parliament, regarding the policy and programs for “Youth and work”.

The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs stated that “through the Recovery Fund, professional training programs for the new generation will be implemented, amounting to 1 billion euros, which is by far the largest training program ever made. And it will cover half a million unemployed and employed.” Already yesterday, the minister informed “the invitation went out and we are starting the procedures from July 27 for 80,000 unemployed people who can be trained, mainly in digital and secondarily in green skills, while we also have 150,000 workers for whom there will soon be a second announcement”. Cumulatively, noted Mr. Hatzidakis, “we already have, now until the fall, training notices for 230,000 different cases of workers and unemployed to acquire digital skills with support from the Recovery Fund”. At the same time, among the other actions of the Recovery Fund, said the minister, “we also have active employment policies and employment promotion programs with 74,000 jobs as well as pilot programs to promote employment for 31,000 beneficiaries. Cumulatively, that is, 105,000 unemployed people can find work with these and only the programs of the Recovery Fund”.

In addition to the new NSRF, which was recently approved and presented a few days ago, the minister noted, a its main axis is young people, that is why actions such as training programs for the integration into the labor market of unemployed people aged 18 to 29 have been foreseen. Programs to support and strengthen young entrepreneurship with an emphasis on the green digital and blue economy. Strengthening apprenticeships for young people up to 29 years of age and support and guidance programs for young entrepreneurs with the provision of consultancy services as well as a mobility program to gain work experience in other EU member states.

The Minister of Labor stated that in the national employment strategy there is “a set of interventions to strengthen the employment of young people, such as the acquisition of professional experience, subsidizing jobs and internships, training and skills enhancement programs, etc., but also other actions funded by the national budget, such as the First Badge program and a number of special programs of the Public Employment Service, but also policies such as the reform of supplementary youth pensions, individual piggy banks, for those young people now entering the market work and for those who choose it from next year and are under 35 years old and it is a system applied in the Scandinavian countries. Measures also for new parents and the family, among which is paternity leave introduced for the first time. Extended parental leaves covered for both parents by DYA. The allowance of 2,000 euros for each child born. The coverage of new families by nurseries where we cover 30,000 more children than in 2019. The creation of care structures for infants and toddlers in 120,000 large enterprises to facilitate new workers which is currently being promoted by the Ministry of Labour. Neighborhood “nannies” and other measures to reconcile personal and professional life.

At the same time, the Minister of Labor also referred to the program he is preparing for this period and will be announced in the next few days by the government, for the new housing policy, which will include financing from a range of alternative sources and will focus on the new generation facing problems with her rents and housing.

Mr. Hatzidakis noted that the high unemployment of young people is a perennial problem and according to the official data of ELSTAT and Eurostat, in April 2021 the unemployment of young people under the age of 25 has decreased to 36.8%, from 43.7% in 2017 and from 40% in 2018, but still at a high rate.

In the government, said the minister, we have never proclaimed and we have never promised that we have magic recipes to deal with unemployment, but we have started an effort at many levels so that the country becomes friendly to entrepreneurship and investment and in this way to unemployment also decreased. And indeed, to a significant extent, this effort succeeded through a network of policies and unemployment from 17.3%, which we received in the summer of 2019, decreased to 12.5% ​​in April 2021. And this, as it will we used to say in everyday life, “it didn’t happen, it worked”. He reminded that in the three years 2020-2022, due to the coronavirus, 10 billion euros were given to support workers and unemployed people affected by the pandemic. Various policies have helped more than 380,000 unemployed people join or rejoin the labor market, creating new jobs and providing appropriate training. The programs of the Public Employment Service tripled and from around 10,000 positions a year with the previous government, we now went to rates of 30,000 subsidy positions for finding employment through the OAED programs, while innovative programs were also promoted, among others, with a program for the young entrepreneurship, with a total budget of 45 million euros from the NSRF. In this program, 3,000 young people had the opportunity to complete a training at Google and then receive 15,000 euros each for the implementation of a business idea.

Focusing on training, the minister said, the new generation of training programs was released yesterday, with which we link a part of the compensation of both “teachers” and “students” of training to the results of their work. The 30% trainees will receive only if they pass some certification exams. At the same time, we are also opening the doors of the Universities to the unemployed and the workers, where for the first time the HEIs are entering training and have already submitted programs to us, while the cooperation of the Public Employment Service with four international giants continues.

The minister said that we consider that “investments and the creation of new jobs from the market itself are the main tool, but the state should not remain and does not remain indifferent to the problems of young people, that’s why we come and emphasize skills which is one of the main reasons we have these unemployment rates” and “we try to speak with work and simple logic in dealing with the problems of the new generation”.

Mr. Hatzidakis, in his retrial and responding to the “angry”, as he said, criticisms of the opposition MPs, stated that he can understand the KKE which wants an employer and that should be the state, but he does not understand SYRIZA which for to oppose the government “creates and constructs a reality of its own that has no correspondence with the real reality”. He even called for the debate to be based on real, official and measurable data and wondered: Is it true or false that we received unemployment at 17.3% and now it is 12.5%? Wages after the 50 euro increase in the minimum wage have brought the country to 9th place in Europe of the “22”, which have a minimum wage system? In relation to the RES of 2020, was the increase not given? In the programs of the Public Employment Service in the two years 2020-2022 of the ND, 50,000 jobs were not created and in 2022 80,000 jobs are still planned, when in the four years of SYRIZA, OAED had created 42,507 jobs to cover the unemployed? Is paternity leave a dissolution of employment? The increase in parental leave? The coverage of 50% of parental leaves by DYA? The upward equation of the rights of artisans with the rights of employees? Establishing the right to disconnect in teleworking? The digital job card?.

About his “holy rage”. SYRIZA on social benefits, Mr. Hatzidakis said that according to official figures and in relation to 2018-2019, we now have 30,000 more children covered in nurseries and a 26% increase in spending. In the birth allowance we have approximately 76,000 beneficiaries, an annual expenditure of 152 million euros. In family allowances 762,000 beneficiaries, an expenditure of 1,000,035,000 euros. In housing allowances 265,000 beneficiaries, spending 368 million per year. Disability benefits to 184,000 beneficiaries, spending 890 million euros per year. In the Minimum Guaranteed Income there are 280,000 beneficiaries, spending 706 million euros per year. Uninsured elderly 36,000 beneficiaries, spending 149 million euros per year and all these OPECA benefits which add up to the amount of 3,000,320,000 euros per year and if to them are added the benefits of DYPA and OAED which is another 1,000,476,000 euros per year for unemployed, a set of benefits only from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs which is 4,796,000,000 euros per year! And this, said Mr. Hatzidakis, is for you “the supposed inexorable policy of the government”!.

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