More than 4400 people registered unemployed in Bulgaria in a single day
A total of 4477 people registered as unemployed at labour bureaux in Bulgaria in a single day yesterday, Labour and Social Policy Minister Denitsa Sacheva told a briefing on April 2.
Since March 13, the day the National Assembly voted the State of Emergency into effect, about 31 600 people have registered as jobless.
There had been 59 applications so far under the 60/40 programe, put in place by the government to help businesses pay their employees’ salaries, with the state covering 60 per cent of salaries and the employers the remaining 40 per cent. The scheme is among the government’s responses to the Covid-19 crisis.
Sacheva said that the government expected the number of applications under the 60/40 programme to grow significantly.
“We expect that by the end of this week, the European Commission will grant authorisation to start making payments under the programme of approved applications,” she said.
At a morning briefing on April 2, national operational headquarters chief Major-General Ventsislav Mutafchiyski said that the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Bulgaria was now 449.
This includes a death toll of 10, and 25 patients who had recovered and had been discharged from hospital.
The total of 449 is 27 higher than the number of cases that had been confirmed by the time of the 5pm update by the national operational headquarters on April 1.
The 27 include 12 cases in Sofia, one in Blagoevgrad, four in Smolyan, three in Varna, two in Dobrich, one in Plovdiv, one in Pazardzhik, one in Montana, one in Veliko Turnovo and one in Vidin.
A total of 167 patients are hospital, 18 of them in intensive care.
Education Minister Krassimir Vulchev told a briefing on April 2 that if the State of Emergency is extended to May 13, final school-leaving exams for 12th graders, currently scheduled for May 20 and 22, would be moved to May 30 and June 1. The timetable for 2020 initially had 12th-graders studying until May 14.
Vulchev was speaking a day after the Cabinet announced that it was asking the National Assembly to extend the State of Emergency, currently scheduled to end on April 13, by a further month.
For the rest of The Sofia Globe’s continuing coverage of the Covid-19 situation in Bulgaria, please click here.
(Photo: Ministry of Labour and Social Policy)
