Press Digest 11.01.2015

Unemployment alarmingly high in Georgia

Our special service is not fully prepared to fight terrorism, claims Alexi Petriashvili

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Unemployment alarmingly high in Georgia

Pensioners, housewives and children outnumber the employed in Georgia. The fact that the state is the country’s largest employer, receiving funds from industry, also represents nothing good.

They have repeatedly reiterated that new enterprises are being founded while the country, with its legions of unemployed, is in a hopelessly bad situation today,”- reports the Rezonansi newspaper.

According to statistical expert Soso Archvadze, around 50 percent of our young people are unemployed today, which is why they try their luck abroad hoping to find permanent employment in a foreign country.

In our day-to-day Georgia, around 62 percent of our people are self-employed, while 38 percent work in state agencies or other organizations. In addition, self-employment is not very prestigious and a person who is hired in an organization or state institution makes nine times more money than someone who is self-employed.

It should also be noted that 80 percent of self-employed people are involved in agriculture, with its pathetically low income. This is precisely the reason why the expert thinks that the government should endeavor to provide its people with permanent employment as well as change their personnel policy.

Take Europe for example – out of 100 people, 85 are employed in different organizations, while 15 are self-employed, whereas in the USA, out of 100 people 93 serve in different organizations and 7 are self-employed,” - says the article.

As for Armenia and Azerbaijan, in these countries the government pursues a personnel policy similar to that of Georgia. However, since our country cannot forego its Euro-Atlantic aspirations, we’d better take our cue from the European states.

In Georgia, out of 100 employed people, 62 are self-employed. Hence, Statistics Service data saying that only 15 percent of our people are unemployed are false. This virtual figure has nothing to do with reality. The truth is 40 percent of Georgians are unemployed today.

Thus, Georgia with its countless benchwarmers is in a desperate situation and Georgians are in need of assistance.

Experts claim that the personnel policy is one of the government’s most pressing challenges, which needs to be addressed as soon as possible,”- concludes the author of the article.

Our special service is not fully prepared to fight terrorism, claims Alexi Petriashvili

We are a united force and they need to stop blackmailing and intimidating us. We are unwavering in our decision to follow the already taken path and nothing on earth can push us away from it,”- Alexi Petriashvili, one of the leaders of Free Democrats told the Rezonansi newspaper.

“Horrible bloodshed in France is obviously filling our hearts with sorrow. We have already offered our condolences to the French people and especially to those families that lost their loved ones in this massacre.

This stomach-churning attack was not carried out only against the French people. Generally, similar attacks are against democratic values, freedom of speech as well as key virtues and accomplishments of mankind.

It’s really praiseworthy that the entire world expressed readiness to fight against terrorism. However, the international community must quadruple its efforts to avoid similar or even more large-scale terrorist attacks in the future,” - declares Mr. Petriashvili.

This is one of the daunting challenges mankind has to negotiate today. Georgia is a very vulnerable region, but we have always made a significant contribution to the fight against terrorism and we will continue this fight in the future too,”- claims the respondent.

“I do not specialize in this issue and cannot tell you how effective measures of the Security Service are; however, the fact that it has been infiltrated by belligerent forces, supposedly those of the occupant, does not give us a reason to think that they work effectively.

To cut it short, Georgia’s Special Service is not fully prepared to fight against terrorism,”- Petriashvili stated.