Crooked mirror of statistics

The Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Population Salim Muslimov shared joyful news: the situation on the labor market of Azerbaijan has stabilized, the number of concluded labor contracts has grown. However, there has been a decrease in the number of applications for assistance in employment.

According to the head of the department, in the first five months of this year 69,250 people applied to the employment agencies for job search. In the same period last year, this figure was 141651 people. Thus, the number of applicants for job search fell by 2.2 times. A little over 30000 unemployed were employed during the reporting period.

If to believe Mr. Muslimov, then with the economic crisis, the industrial recession, the decline in trade turnover and other problems in the country is over. All enterprises work in the usual way, salaries and pensions are paid in time, supermarkets have abundance, and the people are happy about it.

However, there are other statistics that illustrate the real state of affairs in the economy. According to the State Statistics Committee, over five months of 2017 industrial production was estimated at AZN 15.71 million manat, showing a decline of 5.5% from year to year. The volume of turnover is decreasing. GDP per capita now is 2,075.5 manat, lower than last year's figure. These figures indicate that continuing negative trends in production, trade, business and the financial sector.

The expert-economist Natig Jafarli notes, providing a little more than 30.000 people with job, unclear permanent or temporary, does not mean that the tension in the labor market has decreased. Jobs can be created in connection with the construction of small buildings or major repairs of the road, another facility in the regions for which President Ilham Aliyev generously allocates funds from the budget after each of his trips around the country. But these are short-term projects.

"For some reason, the data on liquidated vacancies, as well as on closed enterprises, shops, production sites, reductions in universities and schools are not published. Therefore, it is difficult to understand how the situation on the labor market has changed. In Azerbaijan, according to official information, the number of employees in the economy is 1510,4 thousand people, 883 thousand of them are involved in the state, and 627,4 thousand - in the non-state sector. And the number of economically active part of the population exceeds 4.9 million people. Comparison of these indicators already shows the seriousness of the situation with employment, "the expert notes.

In addition, according to Jafarli, the authorities do not regard the country's peasants who have a small plot of land as an unemployed, but who do not have a job and a source of income. There are about 700 thousand such people. They are not even given the status of unemployed. Moreover, local authorities sometimes take away their empty lands and build farms on them, and the real owners of the site are not allowed to work there.

For this reason, there are serious differences between the number of employees and the unemployed. If the unemployment rate in Azerbaijan was calculated according to generally accepted rules, in our country the real unemployment rate would many times exceed the figure presented by the state. This would help to correctly assess the situation in this market, take effective measures to solve the problem. The reason for the concealment of the facts about the closing enterprises and vacancies is clear: do not increase the degree of tension and discontent in society, level the situation in the labor market, prevent criticism of the government and authorities.

However, there is one more important point: distrust to the state structures. A significant portion of people do not seek help from the employment services at all. This is evidenced by the results of studies conducted by the NGO "Transparency Azerbaijan", according to which only 17.3% of applicants apply to employment centers when looking for work. The rest do it themselves or with the support of friends.

According to the lawyer of Transparency Azerbaijan Ayten Alizamanli, to assess the scale of unemployment, it is necessary to create an electronic system for registering the unemployed in employment centers, to speed up the process of creating a unified information base of vacancies available to citizens. There must be profiles of job seekers and employers, which will greatly accelerate the work of the structures. In addition, it is necessary to ensure the exchange of information between state structures in order to identify the number of unemployed who need help, organize career counseling courses for them, and involve self-employment in the project.