Subsidies help Cyprus employers hire 2,400 grads, jobless

 — ‘Green skills’ to create 5,000 new jobs —

Incentives announced by the government earlier this year have helped Cyprus employers hire nearly 1,000 university graduates and 1,400 jobless but skilled people this year, despite a recent rise in unemployment to 25,021 in November.
Speaking at the launch of the ‘Green Skills’ programme that aims to boost employment in the green economy of farming and energy efficiencies, Dr. Yiorgos Oxinos, Director General of the Human Resources Development Agency said that employers have been hiring university graduates at a rate of nearly 80 a month and are subsequently applying for the HRDA grant that subsidises 80% of the employees’ wages, with a ceiling of EUR 1600 per month. This scheme aims to keep young people employed and lessen the burden on state payments to the jobless, if the applicant is retained for six or twelve months.
“From our surveys at workplaces, we have discovered that in 95% of cases, employers have kept these graduates for longer, as they are skilled,” Oxinos told the Financial Mirror.
The HRDA also gets about 120 applications a month from employers hiring other jobless workers with similar subsidies on their wages.
Oxinos added that of the Agency’s EUR 33 mln budget for 2011, some 20 mln will be used to promote new schemes and help prevent the rise of unemployment.
The new Green Skills scheme is based on knowledge and innovation and will help create 34 new job categories, most of them at management level and suited for university graduates. These are focused on creating new opportunities in the ‘green economy’ of managing environment protection services and natural resources, as well as the management of efficient methods and energy saving in existing job categories.
Oxinos explained that 21.6% of the island’s labour market is active in the ‘green economy’ that includes farming and agriculture, manufacturing, energy production and waste management, and the wider sector that incorporates services, trade and transport. However, there could be no comparison with the rest of the EU as Eurostat has yet to come up with a study based on the criteria that HRDA has devised.
“The most significant factor in the ‘green economy’ is highly skilled and higher education graduates,” Oxinos said, adding that new job categories at the higher level include solar and wind park engineers, biofuel production managers, researches and civil engineers involved in eco-friendly constructions, climate control experts, and many other specialised positions. Mid-level jobs include installation technicians and operators of equipment in eco-friendly industries, as well as efficient farming, landscapists and environmental experts to be hired by consultants, architects and engineering firms, in addition to experts working in large retail or services organisations who would be responsible for energy-saving and efficiencies at their premises.
“Environmental obligations and demands for greater efficiencies are affecting all companies in Cyprus, from the food-processing plant to banks and other public service buildings, and employers, including the government, have to hire the right people to do this job. New buildings have to be designed in accordance to strict environmental regulations and we have started a series of consultations with various employer groups and social partners to promote these schemes,” Oxinos said.
Phryne Michael, speaking on behalf of the Employers and Industrialists Federation, OEV, told the Financial Mirror that the HRDA is one of the most important links in the whole labour market chain and that should be commended for working to generate jobs, especially without any state funding. In all, 27 mln euros of the Agency’s budget comes directly from employers’ contributions and the rest of the budget is balanced from other surpluses.
Declaring 2011 as the Year of Green Skills for the HRDA, Labour and Social Insurance Minister Sotiroulla Charalambous said that the new programme will help increase productivity, efficiency and competitiveness in the economy in general.
She said that the new programme coincides with the ‘Europe 2020’ directive for energy savings and will help determine 11,400 new jobs arising from 5,700 new positions and as many replacements.
“By 2013, we estimate that the ‘green economy’ will be responsible for 87,800 people in the labour market,” she added.