Measures to help unemployed ‘soon’

THE GOVERNMENT is planning to announce measures that will help reduce unemployment figures soon, government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said yesterday.

According to Stefanou, Cyprus is facing problems with rising unemployment figures, though he said these increases were not among the highest of the EU.

“Cyprus continues to be below the average in unemployment figures in the eurozone and the EU,” said Stefanou.

However according to data released by Eurostat this week Cyprus is one of the countries within the EU that has seen unemployment increase the most between November 2010 and November 2011.

“However, this doesn’t appease us, nor do we feel that this should stop us from taking into consideration the problems that arise from unemployment,” he added. “There is a problem and this problem is a result of the economic crisis, but also various other external factors, which reinforce the problem.”

Stefanou said the government was continuously promoting measures that will help alleviate the problem and create new job positions.

One such measure, he explained, was the government’s training programmes to help the unemployed gain knowledge in various fields to help them find work.

“I would like to hope that with the added support the government is giving to developments, as well as the specific measures it will announce soon, new job positions will open and the problem will be alleviated,” said Stefanou.

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.