Thu, Feb 09 2012

Labour unions say 170 000 Bulgarians lost job in 2009

Thu, Mar 11 2010 17:05 CET

byNick Iliev

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Labour unions say 170 000 Bulgarians lost job in 2009

Photo: Assen Tonev

More than 170 000 Bulgarians have been made redundant in 2009, according to data released by the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), quoted by the Bulgarian national television (BNT).

But according to the National Statistics Institute (NSI), more than 182 000 Bulgarians were made redundant in 2009.

Additionally, about 550 000 Bulgarians were being paid about 400 leva or less a month, which was far below the average wage in the country, according to the BNT.

Moreover, firms in Bulgaria saved about 300 million leva worth of wages, indicating a 1.8 per cent decline of payroll spending by the private sector, caused by the shrinking labour market.

The manufacturing sector in Bulgaria was the worst-hit in the past 12 months, with more than 71 000 losing their jobs, while the construction sector shed 35 000 jobs. In the third quarter alone, the Bulgarian economy lost 84 000 jobs, or a further decline of 3.6 per cent, according to CITUB's data.

Meanwhile, amid the general decline, a substantial pay increase was observed in the fields of electric and thermal energy sectors and education, which according to the BNT stood between 10 and 16 per cent. Wages in the private and public sectors and the IT segment in particular also accounted for a small increase, from four to six per cent.

According to the NSI, in the third quarter of 2009, the average monthly salary rose by 3.9 per cent higher than the third quarter, to 606 leva.

The biggest increase in pay was in the industrial sector – 13.7 per cent, followed by financing and insurance, 11.2 per cent, and in real estate by 8.8 per cent, the report says.

Civil servants saw their salaries drop by 2.7 per cent on average, while in the science and research sector, the decline was 0.6 per cent.

The highest salaries were reported to be in the energy sector, averaging 1358 leva, followed by finance, 1324 leva, and manufacturing, 1015 leva.

CITUB, however, claimed that should Bulgaria be hit by another major wave of lay-offs in 2010, the ones facing redundancies would be the highly skilled employees, BNT said.

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