29th November 2018, Skopje – Denar 10.2 billion more is projected in 2019 Budget, allocated for health, education and social protection More funds have been allocated this year as well, in relation to 2017, for this purpose. We are continuously working on strengthening these sectors, thus investing in human potential and increased productivity. This was pointed out by the Minister of Finance, Dragan Tevdovski, at today’s presentation of “Systematic Country Diagnostic”, prepared by the World Bank.
–
-Key factor to economic development and fight against poverty is the human capital. By investing in people, productivity increases, contributing to boosted economic growth and creating more and better paying jobs, Tevdovski said.
Minister of Finance underlined that the Government undertook comprehensive reform of the social assistance and child protection system. Such reform makes Macedonia the first country in the region to introduce guaranteed minimum income, whereby scope of beneficiaries of child allowance and educational allowance will be extended.
As regards education, the Minister said that activities were being undertaken aimed at increasing the number of children attending early childhood education. The goal is to increase the attendance from 30% to 50%.
Activities are also being undertaken aimed at improving the infrastructure, as well as the health care and education infrastructure and programs.
Minister of Finance said that better paid employees were more productive. Therefore, the Government has and will continue increasing the wages of employees in the key sectors, such as health, education and child care.
-Real problem the health sector faces is outflow of personnel. Therefore, we have envisaged for the wages of health workers to be increased this and the next year, the specialist being increased their wages by additional 10%. When employees are better paid, they are more productive. Hence, we have and will continue increasing the wages in the education and the child care sectors. Apart from the public sector, by having introduced a higher level of minimum wage and the government measures to support wage increase, wages in the private sector have also increased, Tevdovski said.
The Minister stated that the Government was also committed to job creation. The highest amount of funds so far for active employment measures is projected in the next year’s Budget as well. Measures aimed at supporting the companies, which are to contribute to stimulating innovations, export, investments and job creation, are also envisaged.
Оваа вест е достапна и на:
