Jobless rate in Kazakhstan not to exceed 5.5% by 2015 - Labor Ministry
ASTANA. July 11 (Interfax) - As part of the state employment program currently being implemented in Kazakhstan, it is planned to reduce the number of people living below the poverty line to 6% and the unemployment rate to 5.5% by 2015.
"By 2015, 1.5 million people will be covered by the employment program. Our objectives are to reduce the poverty rate to 6% and the unemployment rate to 5.5%," Minister of Labor and Social Protection Gulshara Abdykalikova said during a government session on Monday.
n total, 40 billion tenge of budget funds will be spent on the pilot stage of the program this year allowing more than 100,000 people to be covered.
According to Abdykalikova, the program will start this July.
As previously reported, the unemployment rate in Kazakhstan fell to 5.4% in May 2011 compared to 5.5% in April. The number of the unemployed in May was 469,200 people.
As of the end of May, 66,200 people or 0.8% of the economically active population were officially registered as unemployed with the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection.
The population of Kazakhstan exceeds 16.5 million people.