Azerbaijan to continue fighting against informal employment - minister (PHOTO)

Baku, Azerbaijan, May 21

By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:

The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of Azerbaijan will continue to work to eliminate informal employment and further improve the social welfare of the country's population, said Minister Sahil Babayev May 21 at the conference "Towards sustainable development goals: promoting long-term development and decent work" in Baku.

The minister noted that over the past years Azerbaijan has achieved significant success in providing employment and improving the social well-being of the population.

He said Azerbaijan has managed to reduce poverty and unemployment and increase wages in a short period of time.

"Over the past 15 years, the country's GDP has grown 3.2 times. The minimum wage increased 5.2 times, the average wage rose by 6.6 times. It is important that the poverty rate in the country has decreased from 49 percent to five percent. In addition, the unemployment rate was also reduced to five percent. During this period, more than $230 billion were invested in Azerbaijan, about half of which fell on foreign investments," Babayev said.

Babayev said that the ministry has such tasks as the fight against informal employment, an even greater improvement in social welfare, increase of employment, creation of new jobs and so on.

"The ministry is trying to improve the targeting of social policy, and to link social policy with employment. Our steps are based on the principle of tripartism, which was developed in cooperation with the International Labour Organization. That is, each of our steps is evaluated from the point of view of the government, the employer and the employee, and the best proposals are prepared," the minister said.

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