More than 80 private companies are presenting their employment opportunities to jobless people and high school and university students at the 8^th Job Far taking place in Skopje on Thursday.

Last year’s series of job fairs have resulted in 600 employments, whereas companies have started the process of hiring over 1,500 people. 228 people have been employed this year with another 290 expected to be hired next month.

“All of you who have come to the fair today, one way of the other, will benefit from the event irrespective of whether you will find a job or just learn which skills are in demand in order to find an employment,” Deputy PM for economic affairs Vladimir Pesevski stated opening the Job Fair.

The government and the Employment Agency for two years in a row are organizing employment fairs, according to him. So far, fairs have been organized in Veles, Prilep, Struga, Kocani, Radovis, Gostivar and Kumanovo.

“Since reduction in unemployment is one of the main priorities of the Macedonian government, today’s job fair is held as part of all the activities carried out to improve the labour market,” Pesevski said adding that more than 140,000 jobs had been created in the past eight years as unemployment rate had been reduced by 12 percent points.

The 2016 operational employment plan is set to be presented at the fair, which encompasses over 27 measures and trainings and funds for their realization.

“Finances will be set aside to support jobless people in acquiring skills and to subsidy job creation. The operational plan also covers people with disabilities, grants for self-employment of these people and subsidies for companies that will hire people with disabilities,” elaborated Deputy Labour Minister Dime Spasov.