DUSHANBE, December 19, 2014, Asia-Plus -- According to the Agency of Labor and Employment Department of the Ministry of Labor, Migration, and Employment of the Population of Tajikistan, 105,000 citizens have applied to the Agency for help over the first eleven months of 2014.

Of this total, more than 67,000 individuals have been registered as job seekers, and some 48,000 individuals have been recognized as officially unemployed.

Over the same eleven-month period, with the assistance of the employment services, more than 36,000 people have been provided with jobs, which is some 34.5 percent of the total number of all citizens who applied.  The main reasons for providing a limited number of people with jobs were that the majority of the unemployed did not have the necessary technical training or had lost skills due to prolonged unemployment, as well as the low level of wages offered by employers.

During January-November 2014, unemployment benefits totaling some 3.3 million somoni (TJS) (equivalent to some 668,000 U.S. dollars) were reportedly paid to more than 6,100 people.

Including those persons remaining from 2013, on December 1, 2014, a total of more than 85,000 people were registered with the Agency as looking for work, including some 57,000 registered as unemployed.

According to the State Agency for Social Protection, Employment, and Migration of RT, over the first eleven months of 2014, more than 225,000 new jobs were created, which is 16 percent more than in the same period last year.  194,000 new jobs were created in the country in January-November 2014.