288,000 new jobs in Algeria handicraft sector

Algeria has created 288,704 jobs and 144,352 activities in handicraft sector since the beginning of 2008, handicraft industries chief at the ministry of small and middle-seize enterprises said Monday.

• “The new jobs are part of Algeria’s sustainable development program”, Hadi Belabed told reporters in a press conference in Algiers.
• He added that the country set an objective to create 510,000 new jobs by 2010. “Some 56 percent of it has been achieved so far,” he said.  
• Old people occupy 70 percent of jobs in handicraft activities while the young represent 30 percent only.  
• “There is a need for encouraging young persons to handicraft sector and giving it a strategic dimension,” said Hadi Belabed.
• Unemployment in Algeria rose up to 13.8 percent in 2007, from 12.3 percent in 2006, according to the National Office of Statistics.
• Algeria officially launched the process of employing jobless people via professional integration contracts in June 2008. A total of 13,000 public economic corporations offered 65,000 job contracts.
• Earlier on Thursday, Algerian Employment Minister Tayeb Louh said 72,000 new jobs were created thanks to the National Youth Employment Supporting Agency (ANSEJ) and the National Unemployment Insurance Fund (CNAC).
• In 2007, Algeria’s ANSEJ announced that it created 231,000 new jobs nationwide in 2006 through small and middle-seized enterprises.