TALLINN - The Tallinn City Council held the meeting in Tinismae High School on Sept. 8 for high school students and their parents with the aim of discussing ways to help those students who have lost their jobs, and to discuss future career planning. The chairman of the Tallinn City Council, Toomas Vitsus, explained to the students the measures being taken by the council in realizing the new anti-crisis plan for solving the problems of current unemployment levels, as well as what's being done to ease the pain.
According to the chairman of the unemployment office Tookassa, Tarmo Kriis, "The sharp increase in unemployment has halted for the moment, therefore the unemployment desk can now more easily plan future activities."
"We were very afraid that the new changes on the law of labor contracts would lead to an increase in unemployment, which fortunately didn't happen. In fact, compensation payments for July and August showed even better results than we expected," said Kriis. "We hope that we will be able to keep this tendency. Though we still do not know all the reasons, we definitely see a stabilization in the situation," he added.
According to Statistics Estonia, the unemployment rate rose to 13.5 percent in the second quarter. A year ago the unemployment rate was only 4 percent. The number of unemployed increased by 64,000 during the past year.
The rapid growth in unemployment, which had started in the second half of last year, continued into this year. Still, the number of unemployed rose less in this year's second quarter compared to the first quarter. First quarter unemployment was 11.4 percent.
By the end of the second quarter, the number of unemployed persons registered 92,000, nearly two thirds are men. The number of unemployed men has traditionally been higher than for women, but this year unemployment has been increasing especially rapidly among the male population.
In the second quarter the unemployment rate for men was 16.9 percent, exceeding
the level set in 2000, the year of highest unemployment so far. The unemployment rate for women was 10 percent in the second quarter.
According to Kriis, due to the higher budget allowance, which was passed on Sept. 4, the problems concerning expenses, which Tookassa recently faced, caused by the high rate of unemployment, are already covered. On Sept. 4, Tookassa's council also confirmed, regarding unemployment insurance, an additional budget for 2009, based on the summer economic forecast from the Ministry of Finance.
"I want to address employers reminding them that they should let Tookassa know about the reduced employee numbers, so that the employee would be able to get compensation from Tookassa," said Kriis.
According to the additional budget levels, the Insurance office for 2009 is set to receive 2.3 billion kroons (147.4 million euros), including the payments on insurance for unemployment, which is predicted to total 1.7 billion kroons , as well as the income from investments. Expenses at Tookassa, by the end of the year, are predicted to reach 3.4 billion kroons including the payments for insurance on unemployment which will total 2.7 billion kroons, and expenses on services and labor market grants, totaling 544.2 million kroons.
