Yanukovych signs law on employment

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has signed a law on the population's employment, First Deputy Head of Ukraine's Presidential Administration Iryna Akimova has said.

She said at a briefing in Kyiv that the law would partially resolve problems on the population's employment.

Akimova said that young people faced problems with employment in the country. She said that the unemployment rate with respect to persons under the age of 25 was higher than average. She also said that people who are approaching retirement age if they lose their jobs, as well as members of families who bring up children with disabilities, cannot find jobs.

"This law significantly increases opportunities for this category of people to find jobs," Akimova said.

According to the law, state policy on the population's employment is based on such principles as the priority of providing full, efficient and independently chosen employment in the process of the implementation of the active social-economic policy of the state; on the responsibility of the state for forming and implementing policy in the employment sector; providing equal opportunities to the population regarding their constitutional right to work; on assistance of the efficient use of labor potential and providing social protection of the population from unemployment.

In order to stimulate the population's employment, a number of mechanisms have been introduced: compensation connected with the payment of the single payment on obligatory state social insurance for employers while employing citizens that are not competitive on the labor market, and small businesses that create new jobs and employ unemployed people; and reducing the single payment on obligatory state social insurance for employers who for a year provide jobs and salaries.

Moreover, such mechanisms include a probation period from the opening of the work record card for students; teaching of the unemployed by working professions; professional teaching of the unemployed by the order of the employer for a particular job; providing starter payments to young employees that agree to work in villages; and the granting of vouchers for a professional education for people from 45 years that have made social insurance payments for over 15 years.

The document also determines that "foreigners and people without citizenship that stay in Ukraine and work at foreign embassies or carry out their professional or labor duties for non-resident employers are not considered to be among the employed population."