Labour Minister Ján Richter has announced a project worth €15 million which the ministry says will help find jobs for about 5,000 long-term unemployed people. The money, received via European Union structural funds, will be paid to recruitment agencies and organisations which find jobs for the target group. The highest amount, up to €2,500 will be paid to companies that find a long-term unemployed person a permanent job, the Sme daily reported.

“We are interested in bringing people who have been listed at a job centre for two years or longer back into the labour process,” Richter said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. “It is about time that these people returned to the world of work and gained certain working habits.”

The project will be aimed at people who have been without a job for 24 months or more, jobless people aged over 50, the young unemployed and people made redundant due to restructuring. According to Richter, employment agencies and inter-governmental organisations will participate in the project, helping disadvantaged candidates to find new jobs. Richter added that the ministry will launch a public procurement process aimed at selecting an agency to run the project, TASR wrote.

The Labour Ministry plans to motivate agencies with special bonuses for finding jobs for the disadvantaged. They would receive €200 for submitting a labour contract mediated for such a candidate, and another €1,500-€2,500 if the employee stays in the post for four months. If the employee still holds the job after a year, the agency would receive an extra bonus at €1,000 or more, based on the circumstances of the employee. The ministry will also take the jobless rate in the region into consideration, Sme reported.

Former labour minister and current Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) MP Jozef Mihál stressed that it remained to be seen if such people kept their jobs after the recruiters had received their money, Sme wrote.

Ľuboš Sirota from McRoy Group recruitment agency told Sme that if the disadvantaged applicants are successfully re-trained they might keep their jobs even after the state subsidies are paid out.

Ivana Molnárová from Profesia.sk job portal says that even though she welcomed such initiatives, the ministry had previously passed changes to the Labour Code which complicated the creation of new jobs, Sme wrote.

Sources: Sme, TASR

Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
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