Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 11
By Anvar Mammadov – Trend:
Providing jobs to a large number of young people, who will rush into the labor market under conditions of demographic growth, is one of Azerbaijan’s main challenges, said Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Population Salim Muslimov.
He was addressing the opening ceremony of the Binagadi District Employment Center on Oct. 11.
Muslimov said that in this regard his ministry together with relevant authorities is developing an employment strategy for the next 15 years.
“Azerbaijan experiences massive population growth, average annual population growth rate being 1.2-1.3 percent. The population is approaching 10 million people. Meanwhile, percentage of young population accounts for about 26. The unemployment rate among young people is twice the average rate for Azerbaijan and it is therefore important to reduce this figure to 5 percent,” said Muslimov.
In accordance with the report of the Azerbaijan’s State Statistical Committee, in the beginning of 2016 economically active population accounted for 4.97 million people, 4.72 million people being employed. Meanwhile, the number of people working for hire accounted for over 1.52 million people as of Aug.1, 888,800 people working in the public sector and 632,300 people - in the private sector.
The number of workers employed in the oil sector amounted to 34,600 people and 1.49 million people in non-oil sector. As of Sept.1, it was registered that there are 34,400 unemployed people in Azerbaijan, 37.8 percent of them being women.
The average monthly amount of unemployment compensation in Azerbaijan amounts to 241.8 manats.
USD official rate is 1,6006 AZN as of Oct. 11.