Social Policy and Labour Policy

The main goal of the social policy in the Republic of Belarus is ensuring a stable increase of the standard of living of the people and conditions for development of human resources. The State should create conditions allowing Belarusian citizens to ensure their economic wellbeing through their labour and implement social commitments in relation to disabled people and families rearing several children, people unable to work and low-income population groups.

To this end, it is envisaged:

·        To ensure growth of real monetary incomes of population as a condition for improving the standard of living and increasing demand and readiness to pay of the people;

·        To increase real wages as the main source of peoples incomes and an important incentive for labour among employees;

·        To increase minimum social guarantees provided by the State;

·        To increase efficacy of employment of population and labour competition in the labour market;

·        To increase the level of pension support;

·        To decrease the share of low-income population;

·        To provide social support to all who need it through better targeted support, improvement of social services, etc.;

·        To provide access to broad sectors of population to medical aid and improve quality of medical services;

·        To increase quality of education meeting the needs of the reformed economy and requirements of international educational standards.

The priority task of the State is to increase the level of wages and salaries so as to turn wages into a reliable source of incomes and increasing its role as incentive boosting labour performance. Compared to 2003, in 2004 the nominal wages of workers and employees went up by 16.8 percent. The growth rates of wages were higher in the budgetary sector of the economy. The role of the minimum wages has been restored, and at the end of 2004 the amount of the minimum wages was significantly increased to the sustenance level.

The priority lines of the policy in the field of wages include: ensuring of reproducible and stimulating functions of wages; further growth of minimum social benefits in the field of wages; elimination of unjustified differentiation in wages; increase of wages and salaries of those employed in the budgetary sphere; and further development of social partnership. In the future, it is planned to place special emphasis on further increase of wages and salaries in the agricultural sector so as to bring it closer to the average national level.

To increase the level of wages, the President of the country set the task to reach, by the end of 2005, the average wages equivalent to 250 US dollars.

Reduction of the share of low-income population is an essential line of the social policy. Implementation of this task will be based on the economic growth and increase of all types of incomes.

Further increase of pensions is among the most important tasks. The focused attention is paid to further growth of the purchasing power of pensions, ensuring of stability of the pension system and timely payment of pensions.

In 2004, the average monthly age pensions were 151,900 roubles, up by 52 percent as compared to the beginning of 2004 (27.1 percent growth in 2003); at the same time, consumer prices for goods and services went up by 18.1 percent. Growth of the real pension is one of essential trends in the development of the pension system. Opportunities for increase of pensions in the present conditions are conditioned by the amounts of funds received by the pension system.

The country has a developed system of social protection of population. Financial support of the family, especially when a third child and next children are born, is among the main lines of social support. The State provided monthly allowances to more than 670,000 children. Families rearing children receive guarantees and privileges in the field of housing construction, labour relations, employment and taxation.

The State provides social support to single aged persons and aged persons living alone, disabled people, and low-income families. These categories receive targeted financial support, a broad range of social services through social service institutions, as well as privileges and guarantees stipulated by the legislation. In 2004, the targeted social support was provided to over 45,000 beneficiaries, including more than 2.9 billion roubles.

The country has 156 social service centres for the population, which include emergency social and economic aid centres; psychological support and rehabilitation centres; special centres for daytime (night) or 24-h stay of people who are unable to provide services by themselves, as well as a system of specialised aid at home. The organisation of new and further development of the existing social service centres will help increase the scopes and types of the services and will allow making such support accessible, targeted and effective.

The policy of the State in the field of labour is aimed at increasing labour productivity and limiting unemployment within socially admissible limits. One of the main indicators of structural and organisational transformation and optimisation of personnel employment is the reduction of the number of people employed in the national economy to 4.3 million. Among positive trends is the enhanced social orientation of the sectoral employment structure, including the reduction of personnel in material production spheres and personnel redistribution to the service sphere, where the personnel rate has increased to 53 percent. There has been a stable trend towards diversification of forms of people employment in small businesses and individual entrepreneurship.

The situation on the labour market has notably improved. Implementation of the range of measures to assist employment and social support to unemployed people has allowed reducing labour available for the labour market and cut the level of registered unemployment to 1.9 percent of the economically active population by the end of 2004.

The strategy in the labour sector provides for further increaser of efficiency and the development of a rational structure of population employment through the creation of new jobs in the dynamically developing production facilities and the field of services that are not in demand. The main efforts will be aimed at update and improvement of the workplace structure, creation of advantageous conditions for the development of small businesses and individual entrepreneurship, and boosting competitiveness of labour force. To decrease the misbalance between demand and offer of labour, it is planned to create effective mechanisms for social restructuring of production and employment of redundant labour, also through the organisation of advanced labour training and refreshment training of personnel, using additional measures of social support of people who are unable to compete on equal terms in the labour market. Special emphasis is placed on employment conditions in rural areas through the creation of new jobs in social sphere and giving incentives for the development of rural individual entrepreneurship.

Health protection and improving of medical services remain among major priorities of the social policy in the Republic of Belarus.

Accessibility and quality of medical support and giving opportunity for treatment using progressive world methods are facilitated by a well-developed network of health institutions of different forms of property. In 2004, medical services in Belarus were provided by 45,000 doctors and 117,000 middle-level medical personnel.

The main lines for development of health protection at the modern stage include: expansion of activities for prevention of diseases; development of the network of day-care centres for medical support without hospitalisation of patients; and equipping of medical organisations with new contemporary medical equipment.

Implementation of measures for health protection has made it possible to reduce the spread of some infectious and parasitic diseases, respiratory and digestion system diseases, and others. The State has taken under its control the situation related to the spread of HIV in the Republic of Belarus. The following state programmes have been developed and are in place: “Tuberculosis”, “Prevention of HIV for 2001-2005”.

The state policy in the field of education in the Republic of Belarus is aimed at increasing the level of education meeting the needs of the people, society and the State and ensuring social justice as regards obtaining of education of all levels.

The preschool education system has solved an important task to ensure full cover of 5-year old children by classes to prepare them for school (88.1 percent in preschool children institutions, and 11.9 percent of children by other forms).

The network of secondary general education institutions is being improved; it makes it possible to meet the needs of the people of the Republic of Belarus for compulsory basic and general secondary education of their children. At the start of the 2004-2005 academic year, the number of children in general educational institutions was over 1.3 million.

The vocational training system of the country has been adapted to requirements of the market economy. Today, the enrolment of children in vocational schools according to contracts of professional training makes 70 percent of the total number of students, which is 7 percent higher than in 2003.

In 2004, an important step was made to bring the structure of training of specialists in secondary special and higher educational institutions in compliance with the economic needs of the country. While the total enrolment indicators were preserved, the structure was adjusted so as to increase training of specialists for machine building, transport, heat and energy sectors and reduce enrolment in economic and law departments (10-20 percent in the secondary special institutions, and 30-50 percent in higher educational institutions).

In the Republic of Belarus, higher education becomes widely spread. In 2004, there were 363 students of higher educational institutions per 10,000 population (184 students in 1990). The higher educational institutions switch over to a perspective line of development, i.e. the 2-stage training of specialists (bachelors and masters).