For the first time, the Labour and Social Policy Ministry is working on a strategy that would encourage worker mobility, Dnevnik daily reported, quoting Labour Minister Emiliya Maslarova, who presented the idea in Rousse on January 26 2009.

As part of the National Employment Action Plan for 2009, the strategy envisions distributing transport vouchers to unemployed people should they find work within 100km of their home. Another way of encouragement was employers to receive state subsidies to cover transport expenses if they import workers from out of town.

Maslarova said that Bulgarian workers were not accustomed to mobility while searching for a job, a trend that was typical in other countries. When abroad, Bulgarians were inclined to travel long distances to and from work, but at home it was not an accepted practice, she said.

The master employment plan is backed up by 190 million leva and would also support various employers to created 3000 jobs for people who recently have been laid off and whose children were still in school.

Another measure to tackle the rising numbers of the unemployed was to help factories and other industrial entities to keep their personnel up to three months, while production orders rapidly decrease, Maslarova said.

The minister also said that at the moment, there were 6000 vacant positions advertised nationwide. In December 2008, the unemployed people registered at the labour exchange around the country have been 232 000, which was 15 000 more than in November, but 23 600 people less than in December 2007.