Dear Tamila,

As a follow up of your email of 4 December 2020 regarding issues of fulfilment of indictor 2.2,  we have consulted internally and with  the HQ colleagues current situation and  here is the feedback: given that we are almost at the end of December 2020 (which is the cut-off date for achieving this indicator), it will no longer be possible to make amendments to the FA.

However, the FA contains for the cases of non-achievement due to exceptional external circumstances. We will assess this when receive the disbursement request (and your justification for non-achievement or delayed achievement) from the GoG next year.

At this stage, we strongly encourage you to do your  best to achieve the target as soon as possible – so we can then take your  efforts into account next year.

With my best regards,

Nika

Nino (Nika) Kochishvili (Mrs)

Progamme Officer

Delegation of the European Union to Georgia

64b Chavchavadze Avenue

0179 Tbilisi, Georgia

Tel.: +995-32-236 43 64

Email: Nino.Kochishvili@eeas.europa.eu

-----Original Message-----

From: Tamar Barkalaia <tbarkalaia@moh.gov.ge>

Sent: 04 December 2020 17:11

To: KOCHISHVILI Nika (EEAS-TBILISI) <Nino.KOCHISHVILI@eeas.europa.eu>

Cc: Lika Klimiashvili <lklimiashvili@moh.gov.ge>; Nino Veltauri <nveltauri@moh.gov.ge>

Subject: Skills for Jobs Programme 2020 indicator 2.2

Dear Nika,

I hope this e-mail finds you well.

I would like to update you and seek your support regarding  Skills for Jobs Programme 2020 indicator 2.2 and its fulfillment by the Ministry of Labour and State Employment Support Agency.

Indicator number 2.2 (Number of job intermediations provided by employment offices nationwide) refers to the number of jobseeker beneficiaries who received support from SESA. Target for full achievement was determined as “at least 10% increase in the total number of job intermediations provided by  SESA offices nationwide compared to the baseline of 2017”, while partial achievement was- at least 7% increase in the total number of job intermediations provided by SESA.

State Employment Support Agency (SESA) was established in October 2019 and started operation on January 1, 2020. In order for the Agency to be operational, work on institutional and human resources development started in January and vacancies were announced in February. In the midst of the process, the world was hit by the outbreak of COVID-19. Due to the said pandemics, the Governments of the countries used quarantines to stop spread of the disease that is highly contagious. Georgia was not an exception, lockdown was announced and active hiring by employers stoped and/or diminished

Considering the above-mentioned situation, all the work described above was suspended for the period of the state of emergency. During the first lockdown SESA started work  in an emergency responce mode within the Anti-Crisis Action Plan of the Government of Georgia which envisaged  temporary unemployment benefits for people who were affected by the crisis. The program targets officially employed workers who lost their jobs/got unpaid leave, TSA beneficiaries, PWDs and self-employed workers who lost their income.  Currently, the Government announced a second lockdown and SESA continues to administer the unemployment assistance program.  As of today approximately 250 000 self-employed have received one-time assistance and around 98 000 received monthly unemployment benefits for 6 months.

Regardless of lockdowns SESA could start implementation of employment support program (and there’s a positive trend) but despite the Agency’s efforts,  possibility of achieving a full target by the end of December is highly unlikely considering the reasons, such as economic downturn, preparedness of the business and related other reasons as stated above. As the mentioned factors were beyond our control, the Ministry would like to address the EU to assess achievements not at the end of the year 2020 but extend the deadline till the end of April 2021. We do commit to achieve the target before the final review mission.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Tamila Barkalaia

Deputy Minister