Penza, 31 March 2016. PenzaNews. Valery Savin, who is replacing the governor Ivan Belozertsev during the latter’s business visit to Kazakhstan, has signed the regional government decree that approves the program “On Implementation of Additional Measures in Public Employment Field To Reduce Job Market Tension in the Penza Region in 2016.”

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The Ministery of Labor, Social Security and Demography of the Penza region is responsible for the program.

The priorities outlined in it are prevention of unemployment growth, and reduction of social tension on the job market, both in the region and locally, including in the company town of Serdobsk.

The plan will be implemented in two stages: in May-September, and in October-December.

The overall funding for the program is 7.5 million rubles, incluging 5,250,600 rubles from the federal budget and 2,250,300 rubles from the regional budget.

The effectiveness of the program will be determined by whether it reaches a number of factors, including: referring 50 persons for advance vocational training; finding temporary employment for 100 people, and employment for 7 disabled persons; keeping the number of people threatened by layoffs under 2,640 persons; and achieving the job market tension rating of 1 in the Penza region.

According to additional notes to the regional government decree, the general unemployment rate remained under 4.7%, and the registered unemployment rate remained under 0.82% of the economically active population by the end of 2015.

However, during the past year, 5,200 people were laid off due to company terminations and cuts, which is nearly a third more than in 2014, while 500-2,500 people were employed temporarily.

The total figure of employed population went down from 678,400 to 669,100 persons, while the overall numbers of the unemployed increased from 32,600 to 32,800 people, and the number of the registered unemployed increased from 5,457 to 5,758 persons.

During January-February 2016, the employed population decreased to 658,500 people. According to monitoring data, 706 workers were laid off and 886 more are at risk of unemployment due to company terminations and cuts.

Over 50% of the people who lost jobs came from state management and military security companies, 11% – from processing industries, 9% – from healthcare and social services, and 6% – from financial organizations.

As of 10 March 2016, 1,502 people were partially employed – 70% of them at industrial enterprises, and 20% in construction companies.