OAED jobs only half-covered
Subsidized hiring of unemployed reached record highs in 2021 but fell well short of the target
Fewer than half of the jobs created through state subsidies were covered in the last 12 months, highlighting the gap between supply and demand, although the addition of over 50,000 jobs to the labor market in 2021 is not at all negligible in such adverse circumstances.
The Manpower Organization (OAED) implemented 16 employment subsidy programs during the year, with a combined budget of 857 million euros.
OAED’s original aim was to cover the creation of 74,000 jobs.
The data show that 31,526 enterprises implemented just 42,614 hirings in 2021, which may constitute a record in this respect, but only corresponds to 49% of more than 86,900 posts approved for subsidy. The problem once again was that for over half of the posts created there were no registered unemployed who fulfilled the conditions for those positions or the companies deemed candidates inadequate to fulfill them.
That was despite the very strong interest by businesses in the programs – even with the uncertainty from the pandemic – that had OAED approve 27% more positions than the 68,500 originally seen being subsidized.
Demand by companies for OAED’s coverage of new jobs reached an all-time high of 108,577 positions, with almost four-fifths of that approved, but only two-fifths filled. Old programs accounted for the coverage of another 4,477 hirings, while 3,040 jobless set up their own business.
The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the OAED-sponsored job take-up in 2021 will serve as a compass for the drafting of new programs the organization intends to run in 2022 and the following years, financed not only by national but also European resources, such as the Next Generation EU fund.
The new programs are set to place extra emphasis on specific categories of jobless workers who come up against significant obstacles on their way back to the labor market, such as young people, women, the long-term unemployed and more vulnerable social groups. Additional attention will also be paid to regions and districts with high local unemployment rates.
