April 2 (SeeNews) - The daily number of jobless registrations in Bulgaria peaked to 4,800 on April 1, as coronavirus crisis took its toll on employment, labour minister Denitsa Sacheva said on Thursday.
Some 3,300 of those 4,800 registered as unemployed because they have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis, Sacheva said in a video file posted on the Facebook profile of prime minister Boyko Borissov.
In the period between March 13, when the government declared a countrywide state of emergency over the COVID-19 spread, and April 1, a total of 31,643 people registered with labour offices in Bulgaria, with 17,793 of them saying their jobs were axed due to the coronavirus crisis, local Nova TV quoted Sacheva as saying on Tuesday.
As of March 27, there were 213,700 people registered with labour offices in the country, Sacheva said earlier this week.
According to data by the government's employment agency, there were 202,500 registered unemployed people at the end of February.
Sacheva said last week that the state is ready to support the unemployed with compensations through the EU's operational programme Human Resources Development 2014-2020.
A total of 59 companies have filed applications under the government's '60-40 measure' to date, seeking state financing of 60% of the insurable earnings of their employees, Sacheva said on Wednesday.
According to the 60-40 scheme, in force from March 31, the state will finance 60% of the insurable income of employees only if the employer contributes the remaining 40%. Borissov said last week that the government will allocate around 1 billion levs ($555 million/511 million euro) to paying out its share of this employment support measure.
Bulgaria expects to receive approval from the European Commission regarding the measure by the end of this week so it can start distributing the financing to the sectors which are most vulnerable in the current situation.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Bulgaria has increased to 449 as of Thursday. Bulgaria has reported ten coronavirus deaths as well as 25 recoveries thus far.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)