Providing employment instead of the social welfare cash benefits is the government’s clear objective to help low income and needy families through cooperation with the business community and the National Employment Service. An example that can best demonstrate the government’s employment drive to encourage job-seekers apply for employment instead of unemployment cash assistance is the footwear factory “Euroasia Footwear” in the Municipality of Kamza, which, one year after launching its activity, has employed around 1000 workers, a majority of whom used to receive social assistance benefit. Prime Minister Edi Rama visited the factory today along with the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Albania, Jiang Yu.
“The factory has so far almost 1,000 permanent employees. We have forged a very close cooperation with the employment service. We will have to hire at least 250 more full-time employees until June, since the company also runs another factory in Valies,” a company representative said, emphasizing difficulties sometimes the company runs into when it comes to finding the labour force. “All individuals on the jobseekers lists provided by the employment service are interviewed, but when they should normally show up to start work, they decline to do so, finding excuses like: ‘I can’t work’, ‘I’m sick, I can’t work’, ‘I would opt for the social economic benefit instead.”
Prime Minister Rama said that social assistance should no longer be seen as a permanent status, but instead all opportunities should be exploited in order to get people back to work and lift them out of poverty. “The law is pretty clear. If you are provided an employment offer and you decline it, then you will be removed from the social assistance program. This is evident, since it is impossible to keep on providing social welfare benefit to someone physically fit to work, but who refuses to work, because economic assistance should be granted to the poorest only. As long as they are unable to integrate, the social assistance is not a perennial status of poverty and misery that totally paralyzes family, making parents and family heads run out of any prospect,” PM Rama said.
To prepare jobseekers for the labour market, PM Rama urged them to make use and benefit from another government initiative, offering paid job training to all individuals who agree to take up work through the employment service mediation. “We have already developed the scheme, offering payment for job training. Whoever is ready to undergo employability skills training, we will provide 55 thousand lek in a monthly payment to support training through the private companies. It’s a new measure we have put in place, which is actually equal to the social assistance payment average,” the Premier said. “This story – PM Rama went on adding – can’t go on indefinitely. It should once and for good determined who is physically fit to work and whoever is offered a job should take it up.”
“Eurasia Footwear” is a footwear manufacturing company that produces footwear for famous brands in European markets, mainly Spain, Germany and Great Britain. To Chinese Ambassador Jiang Yu the company’s presence here is a model of successful cooperation. She added that more Chinese companies are encouraged and exploring opportunities to invest in Albania. “This is a successful tripartite cooperation model – China, Albania and European countries. We are encouraging more Chinese companies to invest in Albania to yield common benefits in the future.”
“We launched footwear production on 17 March, 2017. This month marks one year since we started operation here. We plan to grow number of employees to 1011 persons by June. Footwear we produce is destined for the German market. We offer Chinese technology, local labour force, whereas we produce renowned German, Spanish and British brands. Albania’s geographical position is very expedient, as the country is located between Asia and Europe. That’s why our clients urge us to produce footwear here. This year, we are commissioned to produce more than 800.000 pairs of shoes,” the company’s administrator said.
