At the Government session chaired by Prime Minister Askar Mamin, Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Population Birzhan Nurymbetov reported on the situation on the labor market in January-February 2020.

“Against the background of the situation discussed today, the Government will fully implement all obligations on social security of citizens. In the state budget for 2020, about 3,377 billion tenge is provided for payment of more than 4 million recipients,” Nurymbetov said.

To preserve the purchasing power of recipients of pensions and benefits, from Jan. 1, 2020, the size of joint pensions as a result of annual indexation was increased by 7%, ahead of inflation by 2%, the growth of other social payments amounted to 5%.

“In order to mitigate possible consequences, taking into account the current situation in foreign markets for the population, the size of all social payments will be brought into line with inflation,” the minister said.

According to him, in the current conditions, all measures will be taken to ensure employment, including the potential of the Enbek state program.

This year, measures to ensure employment are planned to reach 735 thousand people. The program provides for all anti-crisis response measures, such as retraining, including layoffs, soft loans and grants for the development of micro-business, employment for subsidized jobs.

For the implementation of these measures from the state budget for the current year, 123 billion tenge is provided.

In order to ensure stability in the labor market and implement measures to prevent a sharp increase in unemployment, it is planned to develop a Road Map for the implementation of infrastructure projects for the repair of social facilities and the improvement of settlements. In addition, the ministry plans to increase the coverage of temporary subsidized jobs, organize vocational training for the released workers and increase the number of grants for the development of micro-business.

In order to preserve employment and protect the labor rights of workers, measures will be strengthened for daily monitoring of enterprises planning the release of workers, with the adoption of measures for their employment.

Work will continue on concluding roadmaps with enterprises on the controlled flow of enterprise workers between sectors of the economy, as well as on concluding memoranda on job preservation.

Preventive control will cover all enterprises in the country at risk, in order to prevent, first of all, wage arrears.

“Together with interested central and local executive bodies, Atameken NCE, systematic measures will be taken to ensure the creation of 431 thousand new jobs planned for 2020,” concluded Nurymbetov.