11.02.13
Deputy Prime Minister Abdulsalam Al-Gadi and Deputy Labour Minister Abdulrazag Tamtam announced that a training programme for unemployed Libyans will be launched this month. A number of Labour Offices have been set up all over Libya and job seekers will be able to visit and apply for the training programmes which are currently on offer. External training programmes are also readily available where local training is not available.

A number of private training centres and some state institutions have been accredited to deliver these training services on offer. All training will be free to all Libyans seeking jobs and the Ministry’s website has been reactivated for the purpose of decentralization and as a means of contact with the Ministry itself.

Asked by the media to confirm Libya’s unemployment figures, Tamtam noted that “previously the recording of the unemployment figures was done manually. Forms were filled-in by hand all over the Labour Offices in Libya and they were sent to the Information Department at our Ministry. So there was room for inaccuracy. The old unemployment figure was over 340,000.” “But I think this included many self-employed, housewives, students etc. Many registered, thinking that the state might distribute some kind of payments. In 2009 over 113,000 were recorded as unemployed. I think it should be around this figure now.”

“The new system of recording unemployment will involve linking through the internet and through the new National Identity Number. It should give us better results and should, for example, show us those who are still being paid by the state and also have a trade licence”, Deputy Labour Minister Tamtam concluded.