TALLINN - The principal aim of the Estonian government's labor market policy is to achieve as high a rate of employment as possible among the working-age population, and this entails a change in the present logic of payment of unemployment benefits, Prime Minister Juhan Parts said.
Parts told reporters on June 7 that although the level of unemployment showed a downward trend, the situation was far from satisfactory, particularly in light of the continued aging of the population.
"The European Union has set its sights on raising the employment rate to 70 percent, while we have an employment rate of only 56 percent among people aged 15 - 74," he said.
According to Social Affairs Minister Marko Pomerants, the government is considering a new labor market policy aimed at bringing the long-time jobless back to the market and preventing long-lasting unemployment and living off of benefits by linking all social security measures to potential work.
"It's not a normal situation that a household living only on various social benefits is in an equal [economic] position with a household working for the minimum wage," Pomerants said.
The current system of benefits is geared toward subsisting rather than being a means of activating people, the ministry said. "It fosters laziness," he added.
The measures the government is planning will toughen activity requirements to the jobless as a precondition for receiving unemployment benefits.
Parts said unemployment benefits would in essence become a jobseeker's allowance designed to steer the jobless back to work rather than enable them merely to subsist.
