«Portimão is the municipality with the most unemployment in the Algarve, so all the social responses to this scourge are needed and are important», he told the Sul Informação the president of the Parish Council of Portimão, at the launch of the Social Insertion Office (GPI), which is aimed precisely at helping those who lose their jobs to find solutions.
Ana Figueiredo recalled that, last March, there were 5216 people registered at the city's Employment Center, and that unemployment reached 22,7% of the active population.
Continuing with the numbers, the president of the Parish Council said that her municipality, in the service of fortnightly presentations of unemployed people, attended in 2011 a total of 22455 people, which gives an average of 2800 per month.
These numbers reflect the harsh reality of unemployment in the municipality of Portimão and in the Algarve – just yesterday it was learned that the rate of unemployment reached 20% in the regiono, which constitutes an absolute record at the national level.
Hence, Ana Figueiredo emphasizes the importance of the GIP, considered as «a new social response, in a set of various responses that we have had for a long time, together with the Institute of Employment and Professional Training».
The GIP, one of sixteen existing in the Algarve and the only one in Portimão, has several goals to achieve. The most important – and perhaps most difficult – is finding 30 jobs for the unemployed in a year. "We are going to do our best to fulfill this objective and, if possible, surpass it", said, hopefully, the mayor Ana Figueiredo, at the launch session of the GIP, which took place on Tuesday at the Municipal Theater of Portimão.
Also present at the session, Carlos Baía, IEFP regional delegate, stressed that, as Portimão is currently the municipality with the highest unemployment rates in the Algarve, this «requires additional measures».
One of the measures, which was also presented, is “Estímulo 2012”, which promotes the hiring of unemployed workers registered with the IEFP for more than six months. “It is important that not only entrepreneurs, but also unemployed people, know about this measure, so that they can say, when applying for a job: if I hire me, you can benefit from financial support,” explained Carlos Baía.
Luís Carito, deputy mayor of Portimão, said, for his part, that the municipality is "very concerned about the situation that the municipality, the region and the country are experiencing, in terms of unemployment."
The vice president admitted that "the unemployment rate will probably not stop here", given the economic situation.
The mayor recalled that the Chamber has been implementing measures to support people, especially aimed at those who do not even have unemployment benefits. This is the case of support for household income or direct social support, in terms of food and medication.
"Unfortunately, we are already waiting for the unemployment numbers to increase in the near future," he said.
Precisely to try to solve the growing unemployment, the GIP was created, which works in the Parish Council of Portimão. The presentation of the new service and also the Estímulo 2012 measure, for which hundreds of invitations were sent to businessmen, entrepreneurs, the unemployed and society in general, did not seem, however, to arouse great interest, since the small auditorium room at Tempo it wasn't even a quarter of its full capacity...
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