Loss of benefits for GMI recipients who refuse job offer

AROUND 2,000 unemployed beneficiaries of the Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) who turn down the six-month job post offered  to help them acquire working experience will lose their benefits, it was announced on Monday.

According to the new scheme to be launched next week, some 2,000 unemployed beneficiaries of the GMI, aged between 28 and 40, will be offered six-month job posts in the civil service, semi-governmental organisations, local government and non-governmental organisations.

“The aim of the scheme is to offer GMI beneficiaries that are able to work the opportunity to acquire working experience,” the acting director of the labour ministry’s Human Resources Development Department, Panikos Lasettas told state broadcaster CyBC.

Eligible individuals who decline the offer will lose the allowance they receive as GMI beneficiaries, while those who accept will receive an additional €90 on top of their GMI allowance for each month they work.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.