At the end of February 2016, the official unemployment rate in Belarus was 1.1% of the economically active population of the country. A year earlier, this figure was 0.8%. Nevertheless, experts say that in fact there are more unemployed in Belarus. Whether so it actually, found out DW.
Alarm messages
Already last year, despite the fact that it was the year of the presidential elections, various Belarusian enterprises continually received information about staff reductions. For example, only at Grodno Azot OJSC, Europe's largest producer of nitrogen fertilizers, 309 people were laid off, at Grodnopromstroy - 379, and at Grodnooblselstroy - 257 employees. A thousand people were laid off at the Krichevsky cement plant. More than a thousand workers have become less at the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ).
At the same time, Belstat reports that as of January 1, 2016, the number of officially registered unemployed in the country amounted to 43.3 thousand people. According to experts, if the current trend continues, when many individual entrepreneurs cease their activities, the number of unemployed may almost triple by the end of this year. However, to what extent does the official statistics reflect the real situation?
Who is considered unemployed
Economist Lev Margolin draws attention to the fact that the method of accounting for the unemployed in Minsk differs significantly from that adopted in the European Union. Only people who are registered with the employment office are considered unemployed in Belarus. First, the expert draws attention, there are restrictions on the time spent on such a record. If the term has ended, and the unemployed person has not chosen a new job for himself from the proposed ones, he is removed from such a register.
Secondly, in order to remain registered, you need to participate in public works several days a month. Thirdly, an officially unemployed person receives an allowance in the amount of 420 thousand Belarusian rubles (about 20 euros) per month.
"All these circumstances clearly do not encourage people to register with employment services," explains Margolin. Former Minister of Labor Alexander Sosnov points out that unemployment benefits in Belarus are the lowest among the former Soviet republics.
Other statistics
According to Lev Margolin, other statistics provide more real employment indicators. There are 5.5 million people of working age in Belarus, of which only 4.5 million are employed in various fields of activity. It turns out that about a million people, in the words of Margolin, "seep through the fingers of statisticians."
Most of the unemployed, continues Lev Margolin, can be divided into three groups. These are those who work abroad, mostly illegally. Those who are employed in the so-called gray sector - the provision of services and the production of goods without the official payment of taxes. And, finally, the Belarusians, who live off their subsidiary plots.
“If there was a desire to determine the real number of unemployed in the country, it would be easy to do, but the figures obtained would mean the collapse of the entire system of the so-called socially oriented state, which Alexander Lukashenko created and still praises so much,” the economist believes.
Will there be jobs
At the last meeting with the government on April 12, the President of Belarus demanded the creation of 50,000 new jobs. “In addition, we will continue to pay close attention to social issues, including youth employment and the creation of new jobs. We will in every possible way, regardless of any market principles, demand from managers and create conditions for businesses to jobs," Lukashenka stressed.
Context
Alexander Sosnov is sure that these are empty words of the head of state: "Our people in power, by virtue of their upbringing and education, imagine that if you give a command, the official will run and create a job. This is a utopia and rosy dreams of narrow-minded people." In fact, continues Sosnov, in order to create new jobs, you must first create conditions for those who can do it. “Belarusian officials do not know how to do this, which has been demonstrated by the last twenty-odd years of the current leadership of the country being in power,” the ex-minister emphasizes.
Cutbacks won't save businesses
According to Lev Margolin, staff cuts at state-owned enterprises occur because too much finished product has accumulated in warehouses. It is not for sale because, as Margolin put it, the main sales market - Russia - is in the same depressed state.
The only way to sell such products is to reduce their cost, the economist advises. “But in our conditions, it is possible to really reduce the cost price only at the expense of wages. This means that either the average wage of a worker or the number of such people must be reduced. And enterprises are now using both of these methods,” Margolin states. Alexander Sosnov, in turn, is sure that staff cuts will not improve the situation, "because public sector enterprises are inefficient by definition."
Expected it to be worse
Data on the actual unemployment rate for 2016 was published on February 27 in the report of the National Statistical Committee. They are very different from the registered unemployment rate. Information on actual unemployment, which amounted to 5.8% of the economically active population, was obtained by the Statistical Committee in the course of a regular sample survey of households.
This process is based on the standard labor force survey methodology. The survey covers 7,000 households quarterly, or 28,000 households per year.
According to official statistics, 4 million 381.3 thousand people were employed in the Belarusian economy in December 2016, which is 2% less than in December 2015. In January 2017, the number of people employed in the domestic economy decreased by another 14.1 thousand to 4 million 367.2 thousand people, the Belstat press service reported.
The economically active population is people who work (employed) or do not work, but are actively looking for work (unemployed). According to the methodology of the International Labor Organization, this category includes people aged 15 to 72 years.
The declared level of actual unemployment is in some way a sensation, the director of the Research Center of the Institute of Privatization and Management (IPM) writes on tut.by Alexander Chubrik. The fact is that many expected that in the face of such a prolonged economic downturn, unemployment would be a couple of percentage points higher. But in fact, our unemployment rate is comparable to the Russian one (there was 5.4% at the end of 2016), much less than in Ukraine (9.6% in the III quarter of 2016), Latvia (9.8% in the III quarter of 2016), Lithuania (7.5% at the end of 2016), and even slightly less than in Poland (6% at the end of 2016). This, according to the expert, means that business has adapted to the crisis not only (and not so much) through a reduction in employment, but also through a reduction in wages. And also - that the Belarusians are really actively looking for work. Similar mechanisms operated in the labor market in Russia.
From the history of actual unemployment
Belarusians have learned the level of actual unemployment for the fourth time in modern economic history. It first happened in 1999. In that year, the first population census after the collapse of the USSR was held. Then there was triple-digit inflation, multiple exchange rates, and $40 salaries. Against the background of such economic problems, the unemployment rate of 6.2% of the economically active population (according to the census) could hardly surprise anyone. Officially registered unemployment in 1999 was almost three times less - 2.2%.
Registered unemployed in Belarus are those people who have received the status of unemployed in the employment assistance service.
New figures had to wait 10 years - until the next census. 2009 was not a perfect year either. The first currency crisis since 2000. Deep drop in exports and domestic demand. Strong deterioration in the terms of trade for petroleum products. In such conditions, the unemployment rate was 6.1% against the background of 0.86% officially registered.
For the third time, the figure of actual unemployment was published by the National Bank. It was in 2012. The Household Employment Survey had just begun, the economy was growing only at the expense of "solvents" and was gradually moving away from the deepest currency crisis of 2011. The National Bank published the May result of a new Belstat survey - 5.6% of the economically active population. The officially registered unemployed at that time were very rare: they accounted for only 0.65% of the economically active population.
actual unemployment. In censuses and in the Household Employment Survey, Belstat uses the internationally accepted definition of the International Labor Organization. According to this definition, an unemployed person is one who (a) calls himself unemployed, (b) is actively looking for a job, and (c) is ready to start working as soon as possible (within the next 2 weeks). Since far from all such people are registered in Belarus, the number of actual unemployed in Belarus is traditionally higher than the number of registered unemployed.
On the shortcomings in the "design" of social protection for the unemployed
There have always been more actual unemployed in Belarus than registered ones, due to the too small amount of unemployment benefits, which can be received for no more than 6 months, writes Alexander Chubrik. In addition, not all registered unemployed receive even this meager amount of money. To receive benefits, you must participate in community service. In fact, the costs of obtaining the status of registered unemployed exceed the benefits, so unemployed Belarusians prefer to do without registration.
By the way, in some countries, even those who work (in the informal sector) enter the labor exchange. There, the allowance is higher than ours, but there is no requirement to participate in public works. Therefore, sometimes registered unemployment exceeds the actual one, which, by the way, also indicates shortcomings in the “design” of social protection for the unemployed.
